Kyou Kara Anata Wa Tsuru Desu
by Meiyun
Summary: "Just remember, Cloud from now on you are a crane." Cloud didn't know why he had to but if it was what his mother wanted, then he'd do it. ASGZC
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.

**Prologue**

_"Cloud I want you to listen to me. From now on you are a crane ok? Just like mommy, you have black tipped wings just like mommy."_

_"Why mommy? Don't you like my wings? Is it because they're not black like daddy's?"_

_"No honey, your wings are beautiful, but to stay safe you have to be a crane ok Cloud? Can you do that for mommy?" Cloud glanced back at his wings and slowly, the ends of them started turning grey, but then stopped at that colour._

_"I'm sorry mummy, they just won't turn…" He felt arms wrap around him as his mother pressed her face against his neck._

_"That's good enough Cloud… Just remember, from now on you are a crane ok?" Frowning, Cloud just nodded his head. He wasn't sure why but if it was what his mother wanted, then he'd do it for her._


	2. Ten Years Later

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.

**Ten Years Later**

Cloud woke up with a start, wondering where he was for a moment before he remembered. He was in the cadet barracks in Shinra Company. His room-mate was snoring away in the bed on the other side of the room. Tiredly, he turned his attention over to his digital clock to see the numbers 5:46 glaring at him. Their training started at 0700, so he had just over an hour to get ready.

Heading into the bathroom, he undressed out of his pyjamas and examined himself in the mirror. He was scrawny, he had to admit that, with little to no muscle on him and only barely reaching 170cm, he was by far the smallest of the cadets that had only just entered the programme around the same time as him.

Letting out his wings, he sighed at the sight of them. His height wasn't the only thing that was lacking. In comparison to any other winged monster there, his wings were half the size of what was considered to be average. If he didn't have that ugly grey tip at the end he could extend them to their normal size, but he couldn't exactly do that here.

He mentally reminded himself that he had to think of this as a challenge. If he could make it through primary school pretending to be a flightless crane, then he could make it through his cadet training. He would just have to work twice as hard to reach his dream of becoming a SOLDIER.

Nodding to himself, he pulled his wings back and got into the shower. Once he was done, he pulled on a pair of his regulated cadet pants and draped his towel over his shoulders before he exited the bathroom to find his room mate sitting up in bed. He seemed to have just gotten up. "Yo, what time is it?"

Cloud cast a quick glance at his clock as he used the side of his towel to dry off his hair. "Quarter past 6. We still have enough time to grab breakfast before training. That is, if we leave within the next five minutes." His red headed room mate scratched the back of his head before he got out of bed and Cloud found himself staring at a hand.

"Reno. I'm a weasel." Shaking off his surprise, Cloud took the hand in his and shook it.

"Cloud Strife, crane." Reno grinned.

"A flier? I take it you're aiming to be a first class SOLDIER then?" Cloud blinked in surprise. How did he know from just that? Reno's grin just widened. "I'm aiming to become a Turk yo. Being able to read people comes in handy. Besides, it's what most fliers aim for when they join Shinra. After all, everyone in first class is a flier, except for Lieutenant Fair. I heard he was some kind of a mutt."

"Lieutenant Fair is a Gongaga grey wolf." Cloud replied almost automatically and almost slapped his hand against his mouth, but it was too late, if Reno's now ever present grin was anything to go by.

"Fan boy much?" He could already feel his face heating up in embarrassment. Reno just chuckled, placing his hand on top of Clouds head before ruffling it a little and making his way over to the bathroom. "If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty much in love with Tseng. He's one hot piece of fox, not that many people know that he's a fox yo."

As the door slammed shut behind Reno, Cloud grinned. At least it looked like he was going to get along well with his room mate.

* * *

><p>Approximately ten minutes later Cloud found himself walking towards the mess hall with Reno chatting animatedly beside him. "And the next thing I know this hot chick turns into an even hotter guy who's all like, 'you should join the cadet programme. If your skills are anything like you've shown me today, you'll be first in line to join the Turks.' And that's the first time I met Tseng."<p>

"And that's how you found out he was a fox?"

"No, that's how I found out he was a damn sexy piece of fox yo." Cloud just smiled and shook his head while Reno grinned. "So what about you chickabo? Why'd you join?" Cloud pulled a face at the nickname.

"Chickabo?"

"What? With that spiky blond hair of yours and your giant blue eyes you can't say you don't look anything like a chocobo, and you're too small to be a full grown one so chickabo." Shaking his head, Cloud decided to just let it slide. If you had friends, weird nicknames were meant to be expected.

"I'm from Nibelheim."

"Well that pretty much explains everything." Cloud stared at Reno questioningly. "Backwater town with nothing to do, not to mention I'm guessing the kids there are bigger than you, so you came here to show them what you could do right?"

"Are you sure you're not a stalker or anything." Reno grinned yet again.

"Nah, like I said I'm just observant." He pushed open the doors and allowed Cloud to go through first. The two of them made a beeline towards the food area before finding a small table to settle down in. "So country boy, coming from the middle of nowhere, how did you find out about Shinra?"

A list of possible scenario's flashed through Cloud's head at that but he couldn't exactly say 'my dad's a crow' and leave it at that. Crows were common in the military. They usually ended up in high up places along with alien type monsters. Shinra would actively seek them out and offer them the highest job possible to entice them to join. Clouds father had been one of them.

He chewed slowly on his food to think more on his answer before he could come up with a believable reply. It would make him sound like an even bigger fan boy, but it would do for now.

"I found an article in a magazine once. It had General Sephiroth and General Rhapsodos as well as details on Shinra on it. I was fascinated by it and… Well, you know the story." He wasn't exactly lying at least, the article was still hanging on his wall in his room back in Nibelheim along with a few posters that he had mail ordered when his mum had been out of town. Reno chuckled.

"Heh, the little chickabo's such a fan boy. Ah well, it's not like it's a bad thing…" Reno pushed his tray away and finished off his water. Cloud blinked in surprise, the other boy had barely even touched his food.

"Aren't you going to eat all that?"

"Weasel yo, we don't need to eat that much cause we're a bunch of scavengers. Besides, this mess hall food tastes like crap yo." Cloud shrugged. The food wasn't that bad. It tasted like nothing but it wasn't exactly inedible. "So you're a crane right chickabo?" Slowly, Cloud nodded his head. "So what are your abilities. Got anything interesting besides your black and white wings?"

"Um… Long life?" His answer caused Reno to start laughing.

"You're a funny little chickabo. We all know you cranes live longer than normal monsters yo. You live just about as long as crows do. You got anything else? Shape shifting? Speed? Super brain? Anything yo. I don't know much about your species."

"Um…" Reno sighed and fell back into his chair.

"If you don't want to tell me that's fine yo." Cloud was quick to shake his head.

"I'm not kidding seriously, I don't have that much…" Reno raised an eyebrow but then decided to just let the subject drop while Cloud checked his watch. "It's about time we head to training, we only have a few minutes to get to the hall." Leaving the rest of his food, Cloud downed the rest of his drink and they both stood up and headed out of the mess hall, towards the training rooms. Opening the doors they were met with a room full of cadets.

* * *

><p>In an observation box above the training room, a dark haired man with large dog like ears was practically glued to the window. His tail wagging frantically behind him.<p>

"You know if you push hard enough Zack, you might be able to break that glass and fall to your untimely death." Zack turned and glared at Genesis.

"Just because you're not interested in the new recruits, doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to be. I mean look at them all. To think that that used to be me." Angeal, who was standing beside Genesis chuckled.

"I don't get why you're always so excited about new recruits puppy. It's not like it's anything new. It's just rats, mice and more rats with a few others thrown into the mix."

"Why is that Angeal? I'm sure you've told me before but I don't remember, why are there always so many rodents within the ranks?" The first class just shrugged his shoulders.

"They make good cannon fodder?" Genesis offered, which earned him a smack over the head from the silver haired first that had been remaining quiet until now.

"Rodents are merely more common in our world. When they breed they tend to have more than one child at a time, but their children tend to die more often than not so they have more. They always tend to get themselves in dangerous situations more often than not. Their natural curiosity always seem to get them into trouble." Zack hummed at Sephiroth's explanation before he turned his attention back to the cadets.

"Oh Luxiere's coming! Now we can see what everyone is…"

* * *

><p>Back down below all the cadets turned to look when a second class SOLDIER walked into the room. They couldn't see his face because his helmet was covering it but they noticed a long tail behind him. He was obviously a rat.<p>

"Cadets!" They all snapped to attention. "In line now!" They all rushed to form a straight line and Cloud found himself away from Reno and in between two large rats. "I'm Commander Luxiere. I'm a second class SOLDIER, and from now on, the lot of you are under my jurisdiction. I expect you all to pull your weight and if I think you're not doing as well as you should be, expect to be kicked out faster than you can breathe. I do not tolerate tardiness and if I catch any of you doing anything you shouldn't be doing, expect to be punished. Now first things first, I want to see what you all really look like."

This was the part Cloud was really dreading. The rats on either side of him already had their ears and tails out. Slowly, he allowed his wings to emerge as Luxiere made his way down the lines. Very soon, Cloud could practically feel the commander's eyes glaring at him through his helmet. "You, cadet, what is your name?"

"Cloud Strife, sir!" He tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke.

"What are you? Some kind of flier I can see that."

"Crane, sir."

"A crane?" Hands came up to around his shoulders and he was turned around so that Luxiere could get a better look at his wings.

"What's wrong with your wings? I've met a lot of cranes in my line of work and none of their wings looked like this." Cloud winced.

"They've always been like that sir." Luxiere let him go and Cloud turned back around so that he could look at the commander again.

"And your parents?"

"My mothers wings are normal sir." He was stared at for a few more moments before the rat beside Cloud was grabbed and Luxiere brought out a knife, cutting the back of his hand, causing the cadet to cry out in both surprise and pain.

"Heal him."

"Sorry?" Cloud looked surprised as blood spilt from the wound before him.

"You heard what I said cadet, heal him. You're a crane, it's one of your abilities, is it not?"

"I'm sorry sir… I can't heal." There were snickers coming from the rest of the cadets as Luxiere pushed away the one that he had cut. Cloud could already hear the rumours that were bound to pop up as to why he wasn't normal.

"Go to the infirmary and get them to look at that." The cadet quickly scurried off as Luxiere turned his attention back to Cloud. "And you. What makes you think you'll be of any use to us? Not only are your wings the wrong colour, but you can't even heal. I'm guessing you can't even fly with the size of your wings."

"I'm a fast learner sir and I am good with materia."

"Are you now? Well we'll see about that. The lot of you, you're all dismissed. Make sure you're here tomorrow at this exact same time. Understood?" There was a chorus of 'yes sir!' "Now get lost all of you." Cloud quickly bowed his head and headed out of the room with the rest of the cadets.

"Heh, puny little crane. I know exactly what's wrong with you." Cloud practically froze. He never thought he would hear that voice, not here. "You're a little Halfling that's why. You half human, you don't even belong here. Then again, you don't belong in the human world either, maybe you should do both worlds a favour and just die already." Cloud turned to look at the person. He really didn't want to believe it but the proof was right in front of him.

"Johnny…" Johnny was one of the cats from Clouds hometown. He had been friends with the mayors daughter and the head of the group that had always picked on Cloud. He was one of the reasons why Cloud had left, but he had never thought that he'd see him here. The other boy smirked.

"I heard from Tifa that the little half human was coming to Shinra, I thought that I'd come along too just to make sure you knew your place, can't have you getting a big head now can we?" Slowly, Cloud backed up away from the other boy until he heard his name being called. He turned to see Reno running towards him.

"Cloud!" Johnny just grinned and turned to walk away.

"I'll see you around Strife. Might want to watch your back though. We don't want any accidents happening now do we?" He disappeared into the sea of cadets just as Reno managed to catch up with him.

"Yo Cloud you should grow more. Maybe then you'll be easier to find. What's wrong? You look as pale as a sheet yo. You're not letting that commander get to you are you?" Cloud immediately shook his head. Almost willing the colour back to his face.

"It's nothing Reno… Wait… Aren't you… Disgusted with me? I mean I'm…" Reno grinned and slapped Cloud hard against his back causing Cloud to stumble a little.

"Full, half or deformed, don't matter to me yo. You're still Cloud right? So no matter what you're stuck with me you hear little chickabo?" Cloud stared at him for a moment before he grinned.

"Yeah, I hear you."


	3. Rufus the Stalker

_BunnyFarmer: I've taken into consideration what you've said so I've got one of my friends beta-ing for me. She's not into BL and doesn't know anything about FFVII but she's really nitpicky about spelling and notices all the little things that I don't._

_I have changed the subheadings to English but neither one of us can be bothered thinking of a new name for the title so I've decided to leave it as that and I feel that it will be fine to just leave the prologue on its own. Thank you for the constructive criticism though._

_Oh and about the smut thing… Yeah I won't be writing huge amounts of smut. The idea of them being part monster/animal and having abilities according to that animal was the only idea taken from love monster. This will not follow love monsters storyline. (To those of you that were interested, there will be no lemon. It may be implied in future though.)_

_Ashlan: I would make the chapters longer but then it would take a much longer time to get them out. It will take even longer once my holidays are over and university starts again. Don't let my first two chapters fool you. I am a slow updater. That prologue was unbelievably short which is why the first chapter came out much faster, because I had already written it before I started posting._

_Edit: I've added to the end of this Chapter because after this there's a small time jump that didn't fit in with the next chapter. If you find words stuck together that aren't meant to be it's because for some odd reason document manager doesn't like it when you copy paste._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Yo Luxiere!" The man in question looked up as Zack and Kunsel approached him. Zack was waving his arms frantically as if he couldn't already see them there. It was hard to miss someone wearing a first class uniform, as well as the giant sword that was attached to Zack's back.

"What brings the two of you here?"

"I have a question for you about your teaching methods, because when I asked Seph about it he went on about how you've been teaching more than me, so you know what you're doing. Then I asked Gen and he just told me to sit down and shut up. And when I asked Angel he was all like, 'my way of teaching isn't the only way puppy,' with that deep sexy chuckle of his." Both Kunsel and Luxiere stared at Zack for a moment.

"That last part was a bit too much information Zack." Kunsel finally said after the awkward silence. Zack just shrugged and set his expectant gaze back on Luxiere, who just blinked back at him.

"And what was your question Zack?" He inquired when it was obvious that Zack was expecting him to say something. The first class blinked in confusion for a moment. Hadn't he already asked him? Actually, thinking about it now, he hadn't. Mentally chuckling at his own silliness he finally asked.

"You know that little chocobo looking cadet in your class?" Luxiere nodded.

"The crane? Though, with his abilities, or should I say lack thereof, he might as well be a chocobo. Their type are only good as pack mules."

"See! There! That right there! That's what I'm talking about! What's your deal? It's not like he's done anything bad yet."

"Alright, alright. Calm yourself Zack. You haven't even given me a chance to explain myself." Luxiere sighed as Zack's look turned expectant again. "As far as I know, Strife's a half."

"Hey you don't know that. His dad isn't listed." Luxiere raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not even going to ask how you know that, but aside from that. How many monsters do you know that don't look like anyone else of their species that aren't half?"

"Er… Seph and Gen? It's weird for crows not to have black hair I heard. Also Tseng has black hair. I thought that foxes were meant to have silver hair."

"Aside from hair colour Zack."

"I've heard that some of the dogs on guard duty get their tails cut off so they aren't a hindrance." Zack shuddered at the thought. "Hojo offered to do it for me once." Luxiere shook his head. Pressing his fingers against his forehead as he could already feel a headache coming on.

"Once again Zachary that's self inflicted. I'm sure that Strife hasn't… Clipped his wings to make them look like that. Even if he did, they would have just re-grown when he wanted them to."

"Ok, fine, let's say that the cadet is half. What has that got to do with anything?" Luxiere sighed in irritation.

"I was getting to that. You see most young monsters think that because someone's half, it makes them easy picking."

"Then aren't you just encouraging them?"

"Alright, look. My classes start at 7, so if you can get up that early, why don't you have a look around the training rooms at around 5 in the morning and you'll see why." Zack pouted at the note of finality in Luxiere's tone, but he knew that the second class wasn't going to say anything more on the topic.

* * *

><p>Zack ended up not even seeing the cadet for another few weeks. It wasn't that he actively looked out for him, in fact, he had forgotten all about his conversation with Luxiere the day after and the topic had never been brought up again.<p>

The second time he saw him was because Rufus Shinra was dragging him down the hallways to look at something interesting he found while Zack was still half asleep. "What is so important that you have me down here at 4:30 in the morning?" He whined.

"Shush puppy, I thought that you were a morning person. God knows how many times I hear Genesis whining about how hyper you can be as soon as you get up for the day."

"I'm used to getting up at 6, not 4:30. Even Sephiroth's still asleep at this time. You're just lucky I wasn't in his room today or, president's son or not, he would have skewered you alive with Masamune." Rufus merely shrugged his shoulders.

"If you had been in Sephiroth's room then you would have just missed out on the show." They entered one of the observation boxes and Zack seemed to wake up fully when he heard a bird cry.

"What was that?" Rufus smirked.

"Go have a look." Curiously, Zack moved closer to the glass. The virtual training program hadn't been started up so all that was there was a large metal room. Flying around in that room was a Phoenix summon and Bahamut. His eyes widened at the sight.

"Two summons at the same time? You've got to be kidding me. The only person I know with that ungodly amount of magic power is Genesis."

"If you think that's surprising you'll be even more shocked to see who's doing the summoning." As if on cue, a fire 3 was being fired at Bahamut and Zack's eyes widened in surprise. On top of the Phoenix summon was the blond cadet that Luxiere had been picking on a few weeks ago.

"You're pulling my tail aren't you Rufus? There's no way in hell that a cadet… A half human cadet could summon two monsters and fire level three spells at said summons at the same time. I don't think even Genesis could do that."

"Well you're looking at him Zack." The wolf stared at Cloud for a few more moments, admiring how easily the cadet managed to steer Phoenix away from Bahamut's attacks, before he turned his attention back at Rufus who seemed to be content with watching from a distance instead of plastering himself to the glass as Zack had a tendency to do.

"So how did you find him?"

"Father called me for a meeting at some unholy hour of the morning and I saw him sneaking into the training rooms. Let's just say that I ended up missing that meeting."

"You actually skipped a meeting just to stare at him?" Rufus merely shrugged.

"Even you have to admit that he's interesting." Zack just turned his attention back to the cadet and the two continued to watch him till there was a loud beeping noise coming from within the training room. Zack looked around, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from while the cadet almost immediately stopped and jumped off Phoenix, calling his summons back.

"What was that?" Zack turned to Rufus questioningly while the other man just looked down at his watch.

"It's 5 already. This is around the time he heads back to his rooms. He tends to stay longer on Saturdays since they don't have classes on the weekends." Zack raised an eyebrow at him.

"Exactly how long have you been watching him? Especially since you already know his timetable. He hasn't been here for that long."

"A week and a bit, saw him wandering in here on a Saturday and have been coming to watch him ever since."

"You kind of sound a bit stalkerish there Rufus. As Tseng would usually say 'such actions are unbecoming of the presidents son.'" Rufus shrugged again.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"By the way, one more question… Why are there so many spider webs in here?" Rufus grinned at that.

"I figured since I'm spending so much time in here might as well make it like home. It's not like that many people use this observation room anyways."

* * *

><p>"Reno, it's time to get up. We have classes in… An hour and we haven't even had breakfast yet." The red head merely rolled over muttering something about chocolate and foxes. Cloud's eye twitched as irritation started to set in. "Reno… If you don't get up now, you're going to miss out on Tseng dancing in his underwear on the tables in the mess hall." At that, Reno shot up from his bed. His head colliding with Clouds and they both yelped in pain.<p>

"The hell yo? What was that for chickabo?" Reno brought a hand up to rub the spot on his head, wincing when his fingers made contact. That was going to bruise.

"I was trying to get you to wake up. It's not my fault that you're impossible in the mornings." Cloud moved over to the mirror to see his own injury. "I thought that you were meant to be a weasel. Aren't you guys meant to be highly alert or something?"

"Hey, not everyone's the same. I just happen to be a weasel that can't get up in the mornings yo." Reno mumbled as he pushed his blankets away and stepped out of his bed. Cloud reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold armlet. Attaching it to his wrist, he focused on activating his cure materia to heal the now forming bruise. Once the magic had washed over him, he made another quick check to make sure the bruise was entirely gone before he felt something crash into the back of his head, almost hurtling him into the mirror. He glared down at the offending object sitting innocently at his feet.

"Reno, pillows are for sleeping on not throwing."

"Hey, it's not fair yo. You're not allowed to heal yourself. Especially if you're just going to leave me with this thing on my forehead." Reno pointed at the red mark on his head while Cloud turned his glare on him.

"It's your own fault for not getting up in the first place."

"Hey it's your fault for hovering over me like that yo. Come on chickabo, heal me." Cloud considered just walking off. After all, it would teach Reno a lesson about not getting up in a morning. Reno seemed to notice and his lips started forming a pout. His eyes started watering and he whined pitifully. "Cloudy…"

"Alright, fine, save your tears you damned weasel." Cloud shot a cure in his direction and Reno bounced up out of his bed and lifted Cloud into a hug.

"Thanks chickabo." He buried his head into Cloud's hair, making Cloud giggle before he set him back on the ground.

"I'll head to lunch first."

"What you're not going to wait for me?" Cloud shook his head while he unclipped his armlet and put it back in his pocket. "Fine, go eat first without me. I'll be a few minutes yo. Have to have a quick shower first." With that Reno disappeared into the bathroom while Cloud started making his way out of their room and towards the mess hall. This past week Cloud had gotten into the habit of going to sleep at the usual 9:00, despite Reno's protests that he went to sleep far too early. The weasel had quickly learnt that trying to force Cloud to stay awake was not a good thing to do. A well aimed fire 3 and a cure later, Cloud had been sleeping peacefully, while his room-mate would have been found hiding in the bathroom; traumatised by Cloud's other personality. Following Cloud's early bed time, he would regularly get up at 3:00 in the morning before heading to one of the training rooms to train with his materia. Once it hit 5:00 he'd head back to his dorms and proceed with the long process of waking Reno up before heading to breakfast and then attending lessons where he would be constantly ridiculed by the other cadets and ignored by his commander.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? The little Halfling going to lunch all on his lonesome?" Cloud fought off the urge to freeze at the sound of Johnny's voice and kept on walking. "What's wrong Halfling? Too good to talk to someone from the same town as you?" Cloud stopped and turned, setting a glare on the taller boy, who simply smirked in return, happy that he had finally got Cloud to react.

"Listen Johnny, I don't know what's up with you. I don't even know why the hell you followed me all the way here to Shinra. All I know is that I'm not dealing with your crap. So either leave me alone or else I'm calling you in for harassment." The next thing he knew all Cloud could feel was pain as he collided with the wall behind him. The other boy was holding his arms down while his face was a mere inch away from his own.

"Listen to me little Halfling. I don't ever want you talking back to me like that ever again. You belong to me and me alone."

"You disgust me." Cloud spat in his face. Enraged, Johnny raised an arm and Cloud closed his eyes, bracing himself for the contact… It never came. Slowly he opened his eyes again, only to find that someone was holding Johnny's arm.

"What is all this in the hallways? I'm sure you know what the consequences are for insubordination and harassing your fellow cadets." Cloud blinked in surprise. It was Commander Luxiere.

"S… Sir." Johnny stuttered.

"I don't want to hear any excuses. I can already tell what's going on here. Don't make me send you both to General Sephiroth, because that's what I'll do if I catch you in this kind of situation ever again. Now put Strife down and get to the mess hall." Johnny was quick to drop Cloud, who landed on the floor with a dull thud, having lost all use of his legs. "You alright Strife?" Cloud blinked up at the hand that was being offered to him before he hesitantly took it. Luxiere easily lifted him up and helped him stand still, till he was able to do so on his own.

"I'm sorry you had to see that sir."

"You should make do with your threat Strife." Cloud blinked again in surprise. "Calling him in for harassment that is. I know it's not one of the most manly things to do, but it would save you from a lot of grief. People like him are not needed within the SOLDIER programme, but without evidence, we can't do anything about kicking them out. We've had a lot of cases like this in the past and lost a lot of good potential SOLDIERS in the process, while we got stuck with idiots that are all brawn and no brain." Cloud sure hoped that his mouth wasn't hanging open in shock at what Luxiere was saying.

"Er… Permission to speak freely sir?" His commander nodded. "What are you saying? I mean I thought that you hated me, but now you're telling me that I should report someone for harassing me?" Luxiere grinned at that.

"I don't hate you Strife. It's a standard teaching method." Cloud blinked. "You went to monster school right? I mean, of course you did. There's no way a monster could go to a normal human school without revealing themselves, whether it's by accident or not. You ever do essay writing or some crap like that?" Slowly, Cloud nodded his head. "You ever get told your work was total crap and that you should do it all over again only to get an A+ in the end?"

"Well… I've gotten close to one." Luxiere shrugged.

"Same method, after all, you've been training really early in the mornings haven't you? I'm sure that was you I've seen sneaking out of the dorms at 3 in the morning." Cloud just kept his mouth shut. They had strict protocols here. You had to be in your dorms by 10, but there had never been a specified wakeup time. Luxiere seemed to realise this and he chuckled. "Don't worry about it Strife. There's nothing in the rule books about not being allowed to get up at some ungodly hour just to train. You might want to head breakfast though. My lesson's in half an hour and you really don't want to train on an empty stomach." With that Cloud dashed towards the mess hall, not before throwing a quick 'thank you sir' over his shoulder and Luxiere's grin just got wider. "Heh… Cute kid. Kind of reminds me of Zack when we started out."


	4. Zack the Stalker

_I added to the last chapter if you haven't already seen it, please read it._

_BunnyFarmer: I believe you're under a bit of a misconception. English is my first language. In fact, it's the only language I can read and write fluently. Cantonese is my second language and Japanese is my University major. (I can see why you thought that though. Also Meiyun isn't my real name.) Don't worry though, I'm aware of the fact that my writing skills aren't the greatest._

_About Rufus. He's Zack's best friend in this. Usually writers tend make Reno Zack's best friend, but since Reno's been taken by Cloud, Zack's best friend is now Rufus._

_Haruhaze: Nice guess, but unfortunately Cloud is not a Phoenix. (Sorry if I spoilt it for you. I just didn't want to get your hopes up only for you to be disappointed.)_

_I apologise for the wait. Mum decided that she wanted to be sharing so half the house including me ended up with her cold._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

During the few weeks that Zack and Rufus had been observing Cloud, Zack had found out a few things about the cadet. First of all, Cloud had only two magic materia; cure and fire. His cure didn't seem to be mastered and was barely ever equipped, but his fire materia had obviously been mastered some time ago. Second of all, he had three summon materia. Phoenix and Bahamut were the only two that he knew of and the last one had never been summoned, though Zack had noticed the red materia glowing eerily in one of the slots in Cloud's gold armlet at one point. That had been the last thing Zack had noticed. Cloud had a gold armlet. Once his curiosity had peaked, he finally decided to ask Sephiroth about where you could find gold armlets. Either the cadet had stopped in Rocket Town at some point and spent a whole lot of gil on it, or he had managed to find one that had been dropped by a dragon on Mt Nibel.

"I wonder how that cadet is when it comes to hand to hand." Zack almost jumped a meter in the air at the sound of Rufus' voice. He had almost forgotten that the vice president had been sitting behind him. "We've only seen him using materia." Either Rufus didn't notice Zack's small jump he just chose to ignore it.

"Maybe I should ask Luxiere how he is at it." Zack offered and Rufus raised an eyebrow at him.

"You are aware of the fact that he is going to wonder why you're asking about the cadet. After all this time you should have forgotten all about him." Zack sighed.

"Fine. How about this then… I'll ask Luxiere if I can observe his next lesson. You know, so that I can learn to be a better teacher and all that stuff. It's a good reason right?"

"Viable reason, but what would bring this on? After all, we all know that you have absolutely no interest in teaching whatsoever."

"Hey, I have an interest in teaching." Rufus sent Zack a disbelieving look. "Ok fine I have no interest in teaching whatsoever. Anyways, Luxiere is a good friend of mine and I can get Seph to back me up. It's not like he'll say no, right?"

"Whatever you say Zack. By the way, if you're going down there, you want to do me a favour?" Zack shrugged and Rufus took that as a sign that he was listening. "Look for a red headed weasel."

"Weasel?" Rufus looked a bit uncomfortable as he continued.

"Tseng's… been ignoring me lately."

"Oh?" Zack looked interested now.

"He's just… obsessed with him. I don't know what it is but apparently he can't find any background information on him and apparently he was the one that suggested that the little weasel should join Shinra. He's just…"

"You think he's cheating on you?" Rufus shook his head.

"Tseng may be a fox but he's not that sly. He'd tell me if he wanted to get with someone else… Just… Tell me a bit about him?" Zack nodded. He might as well, after all Rufus was the one that showed him where the little chocobo trained. So he needed to look for a chocobo and a weasel, but first of all, he had to convince Luxiere to let him into his class. It looked like a trip to Sephiroth's office was in order.

* * *

><p>"No absolutely not. You can't even handle commanding a couple of cadets when the general is busy. What makes you think that I'd let you anywhere near my own cadets?" Zack pouted at Luxiere.<p>

"Aw come on Luxiere I just want to see how you teach. Besides, I asked Seph. He said I could come observe because I might learn something for once."

"And why exactly does it have to be my hand to hand class? Can't you just… sit there and observe me while I'm teaching one of my theory lessons?"

"Because theory is boring! I'll probably fall asleep right in the middle of it." Luxiere stared at him.

"Is that why your results were only sub-par? Just scraping past the pass level." Zack just turned his eyes elsewhere, not looking at the Second. "You know what, fine, since you're so interested in how I teach, you can at least be of some use and help out." Zack grinned. "But that doesn't mean I'm not suspicious of you. I'll find out what you're scheming up eventually." Zack's grin turned into a frown at that. "Now hurry up. If you make me late for my hand to hand it'll be your head."

"Yeah, yeah, we can't have you acting all late and flustered in front of your cadets can we?" Luxiere glared at him as they headed down the hallways towards Luxiere's usual training room. Zack quickly got over his annoyance with Luxiere at the thought that he'd see the chocobo like cadet up close and personal. He wondered how amazing Cloud's hand to hand would be.

* * *

><p>Cloud really hated Reno right now. He had already knocked him back on his ass five times and spent the whole time grinning at him. It was at times like this that Cloud honestly wondered if Reno was part Cheshire cat or something… Did Cheshire cats even exist? He bet if they did, they would look just like Reno. Before he could think more on the subject, he felt himself being knocked back again and braced himself for the impact. It never came.<p>

"Whoa there don't you think you're spacing out a bit too much there spikey?" He blinked and turned around to face his saviour, only to find himself face to face with Zack Fair. He could feel the blood rushing to his face and he turned away to hide it, catching a glimpse of Reno, who's grin had turned up a few notches.

"Spikey? Looks like you got a new nickname chickabo." Cloud glared.

"Shut up Reno." Zack grinned. He had been surprised at first when he saw how bad the cadet was at hand to hand, but if his materia use didn't make up for it, his attitude would have. "Stupid weasel, just because you grew up in the slums where you had to learn to fight." If possible Zack's grin got even wider. It looked like he had found Rufus' weasel as well.

"Just because you were brought up in a town in the middle of nowhere, where the most fighting you had to do was with a chicken, doesn't mean you have to take it out on me yo." Reno shot back with that grin still on his face. If Cloud still wasn't being held, he would have hit Reno… Which reminded him, Lieutenant Fair was still holding onto him.

"Um… Er… Sir…" Damn, he was stuttering. Zack just looked down at him questioningly. "Could you… let go of me?" Zack blinked before realising that he was still holding onto the cadet.

"Oh sorry Cloud, didn't realise I was still holding onto you." He let him go and Cloud stepped away from him, petting down his hair in the process. "It's a bit dangerous daydreaming while you're practising hand to hand, also you need to stop trying to just charge at your partner all the time, you're full of openings." Cloud nodded his head before Zack bounded off. Cloud felt Reno wrap his arms around him as he was pulled up against the weasel's chest protectively. He looked up at Reno confused while the other boy was glaring at Zack's retreating form.

"Not that your affection is unwanted Reno, but I thought that you were in love with that Turk?"

"You should stay away from the Lieutenant." Cloud blinked in confusion.

"Why?"

"Just stay away from him." Reno didn't really think that it was anything to be worried about, but the fact that the Lieutenant had known Cloud's name without anyone telling him was enough to put him on edge.

* * *

><p>Having accomplished his mission, Zack waved a goodbye to Luxiere, signalling that he was leaving before he headed out the doors. He flipped his PHS open during the process and dialled Rufus' number.<p>

"What is it Fair?" Zack pouted as he made his way towards the elevators.

"What? Not happy to hear from me? After I tell you that I saw that little weasel your lover's so interested in and that I found out some interesting things from that one lesson?"

"Well?" Zack clicked his tongue at him.

"Say please."

"Stop playing around Zack, just tell me."

"Well the chocobo's terrible at hand to hand… Maybe I should mentor him or something, that might be fun. I can get to know him at the same time. On the other hand the weasel seems to not like me."

"What do you mean not like you?"

"Don't know, but I could practically feel his glare on the back of my head when I was leaving. By the way, funny fact. The weasel and chocobo are friends."

"Ok… Is that it?" The elevator dinged, signalling that it had arrived and Zack stepped in, hitting the button for floor 51.

"Well what did you expect? It was only one lesson. It's not like I'm going to be able to find out that much about them in less than an hour."

"So are you going to go again?"

"That was the general idea." The elevator dinged again as it stopped and Zack ran his fingers over the buttons casually before he stepped out, not even feeling sorry for the unknowing cadet that stepped in as he headed towards Sephiroth's office.

"So what's your game plan?"

"Go to a few classes." Zack swiped his stolen keycard before pushing open the door to Sephiroth's office and made his way over to the desk, obviously taking advantage of the fact that there was no one there. "Maybe get to know him a bit and I might even find some information on that little weasel of Tseng's." He ignored the annoyed sound that came from the other side of the phone. "Then we'll see what happens from there. If all goes well, I'll have this cute little chocobo like cadet all to myself to train." He started shuffling through the desk and pulled out a piece of paper with a triumphant yell.

"Zack… what are you doing?"

"Oh, you know, the usual."

"Which is?"

"Breaking into Sephiroth's office, stealing one of those papers that he uses for official stuff and forging his handwriting." There was a sigh from the other end of the phone.

"The things you get away with…" Zack just grinned.


	5. Missing Papers

_I know this is short. I wanted this out before I left. Next week I'll be heading up to Palmerston North and the week after that I'm going to Japan and Hong Kong for a month._

_Long story short. My brother's fiancee is trying to cut him off from our family. I got asked out, was put on the pill to see if I had endometriosis. Depression started and I broke up with my boyfriend just before exam week. Life hasn't been so good for me lately._

_On the bright side, I'm feeling somewhat better now, and I will be writing when I go on holiday so expect a chapter when I get back. This isn't beta'ed because my beta is currently going through some problems of her own._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Sephiroth always knew when Zack had been in his office. Not that Zack didn't try to hide his tracks, he was just never any good at it. First of all his door was still open, meaning that the First Class had just rushed out of the room without checking that the door had closed properly behind him. Secondly, his chair had been moved; it was now facing the wall, meaning that Zack had been spinning on it like it was some kind of a toy.

Sighing Sephiroth entered his office, closing his door, making sure it clicked closed properly and turned his seat the right way around. He made a quick check to make sure there were no pranks laid down before settling down in his chair and pressing the speaker button on the phone. He hit the speed dial as he searched his desk. "Hello, General Rhapsodos speaking." The man on the other line sounded like he was bored out of his mind.

"Genesis, have you seen the puppy lately?" Genesis sighed at that.

"Nope. Haven't seen him since we got back. Why? Did something happen?"

"He seems to have raided my office again while we were out. Since my chair isn't broken again I assume that he came he came in here with the intent to steal something." Genesis hummed thoughtfully.

"Anything missing?" Sephiroth pulled open one of her drawers.

"Yes…" He shuffled through the drawer a bit to make sure it wasn't just misplaced. "It seems that he's stolen a few of my papers."

"Any official orders that you don't remember making?"

"As far as I know, no. I guess we'll just have to see when whatever he's done comes into action."

"Speaking of the puppy, did you or Angeal ever figure out what the puppy was doing every morning?"

"As far as I know, he's been wandering into the training rooms every morning. Angeal reckons that he's just taking his training more seriously." Genesis laughed while Sephiroth let out a low chuckle of his own at the thought.

"Did he forget that this was the puppy we're talking about?"

"I think it was more like wishful thinking. Either way, at least now I know where my spare key card got to."

"Not that you had any doubts that the puppy was the one that had stolen it."

"I thought that I would give him the benefit of the doubt." Genesis laughed at that.

"When will you learn Sephiroth? When something goes missing it's always the puppy's fault. So what are you going to do about our sticky fingered little puppy?" Sephiroth smirked.

"Torture him a little I guess. Maybe see what he does when we keep him from his morning rendezvous with the training rooms and see why he's so intent on watching cadets beat up each other in Luxiere's lessons."


	6. Having Fun

_Ok I thought I'd be nice and post this just before I left tomorrow. If any of you have looked at my profile I'm challenging myself to write 50,000 words before the end of November and I've actually written another 4 more chapters already but I won't be posting them till I come back from my holiday. I'll probably have a lot more than just 4 more chapters when I get back, though I won't post them all at once._

_By the way you probably noticed I stopped using yo at the end of Reno's sentences. It's hard figuring out where to put it, (I used to just add at the end of sentences where he could say de zotto in Japanese) not to mention it looks inappropriate when Reno's angry, so I just stopped doing it._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

When Rufus saw Zack the next day, the wolf was in his office and looked like he had been run over by a truck and backed up on. He was pretty much half asleep on his desk next to a large pile of signed papers, with his hair in more of a disarray than usual and an odd smell was coming from his general direction. "I take it that you were busy this morning, which is why you weren't at the training rooms? By the looks of it, you had quite a night last night." Zack lifted up his head and glared at him, which sent Rufus into a fit of chuckles as he sat down on the chair opposite him.

"For your information Angeal somehow found out about me sneaking into Sephiroth's office and spent the whole time lecturing me when I got home. Genesis thought it was necessary to spent the WHOLE night comforting me, which was amazing if it weren't for the fact that Sephiroth saw it fit to wake me up after an hour of sleep and told me that I had to go do a whole lot of paper work before I left for Luxiere's lesson. We're just lucky that they didn't ask questions. I didn't even get the time to have a shower."

"Which explains the smell. I'm not even a canine or a feline and I can smell you from here." Zack's glare hardened and Rufus let off another round of chuckles. "You still have an hour to shower and grab a coffee so that you can look presentable to the little cadet and do some more snooping for me."

"I have half a mind to let you go off and do your own snooping. It's not like it would be that hard for you to just sit in one of the observatory boxes and just watch the weasel."

"I have better, more important things to do, not to mention you don't have any missions or boring meetings to go to. Besides, you are the one that volunteered in the first place. No backing out now. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sit in yet another boring meeting and deal with Scarlet's annoying advances." Zack smiled at the thought as Rufus stood up.

"When are you ever going to tell her that you're taken and black widow spiders aren't your thing." Rufus paused just as he pushed the door open, with a small frown on his face at the thought of the woman.

"Female spiders are not my thing… I'd rather keep my head attached while in bed. In fact, unless it's Tseng's ass anything curvy just isn't my thing. Females in general are just too much work and I have enough of that as it is."

"Ah paper work." Zack's head met his desk with a loud thump. "The bane of my existence. I have no idea how Seph does this all day."

"Practise and patience. Anyways, are you going to go see your little chocobo today? Or do I have to wait till tomorrow for some more info on the little weasel?" Zack sighed.

"Well I'm up now." He pushed back on his chair and stood up. "Shower, then go find Luxiere."

"Good, I'll expect a call at the end of the day." With a nod Rufus walked out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind him. Zack sighed again before he grabbed his buster sword from where it was sitting against the wall and headed in the general direction of his apartment. He didn't even notice the two figures trailing behind him.

* * *

><p>"You know, I think the puppy needs to be retrained. We've been watching him and trailing behind him all day and he still hasn't noticed us here. We could be terrorists out for his head for all he knows."<p>

"We did keep him up all night so his senses are down, not to mention, who in their right mind would attempt to break into the Shinra complex at this time of year? Most of the employee's are on holiday, not to mention all SOLDIER personnel are within the complex. Any suspicious people would immediately be detained by the Turks as soon as they set foot on the building. It would be more reasonable for them to attempt an infiltration in the more busier parts of the year, like when we bring in new recruits."

"Sephiroth stop being logical, I hate it when you do that."

"All the better to prove you wrong Genesis." Both SOLDIER's were trailing behind Zack, making it look like they were discussing important business in hushed voices so that no one else could hear what they were talking about.

"As you love to do Sephiroth. So what do you think Rufus went to see Zack for?"

"I would have thought that it would have been just another one of their chats to waste time, but I'm pretty sure I heard Rufus say something about getting some information on a weasel."

"A weasel? I don't think I remember seeing one among the cadets, but I do remember seeing a halfling in that bunch."

"The one with the small grey tipped wings? The one that Zack was asking about a few weeks ago?" Genesis nodded his head.

"No idea why he was so interested in him."

"I think it was more Luxiere's treatment of him. The puppy was picked up by Angeal before he could get a real experience of the cadet programme. He dropped it after Luxiere explained what he was doing according to Angeal." They both stopped as Zack rounded the corner to his apartment and they ducked into a different corridor so that Zack wouldn't be able to see them when he came back out. "So I'm guessing our main concern is this weasel that he's chasing after for Rufus." Genesis lent against a wall, bringing Loveless out as they waited for Zack.

"Maybe there's something special about him? We could ask Tseng. He's bound to know why the two are so interested in him." Sephiroth shook his head.

"Too easy." Genesis looked up from his book and stared at Sephiroth in surprise.

"You can't be serious? We have other things to do than following Zack around in an attempt to figure out what he's planning. It'd be easier to just…"

"If it's the puppy it's probably not something dangerous. We might as well let him have his fun and this would help us pass the time." Genesis shook his head.

"I never knew that you had a sense of fun. The only fun we've ever had was when we're in the bedroom under the sheets." Sephiroth glared.

"I'm perfectly capable of having fun while outside of the bedroom. Just my idea of fun isn't going out to watch a show that I've seen hundreds of times before; that I know every word of every line."

"I'll have you know Loveless is the most amazing piece of literature ever written, you just can't understand the extent of how ground shaking it is."

"You're enamoured by it enough to make up for our lack of interest in it." They both quietened down at the sound of a door clicking open and Zack was bounding out of his room as if he hadn't just been in a bad mood a few minutes ago. Genesis made a face as if he was disgusted with Zack's sudden change in attitude.

"I don't know how he does that. One minute he's tired and looking about to collapse and then the next he's happy and rushing around like he's on a sugar high."

"It can't be helped, it's part of his personality, you have to admit, his ability to bounce back is useful in some circumstances." Genesis couldn't help but grin and hum in agreement. "Now put that book away and move before we lose him." With that Genesis quickly tucked his book back into his pocket and they both once again began trailing the puppy. Once Zack had entered the training hall they both hurried up to the observation box to see exactly what he was doing.

"That red headed thing with the flat ears and the short tail doesn't look too happy to see Zack there." Was the first thing that came out of Genesis' mouth and Sephiroth nodded his head in agreement.

"You seem to have possibly spotted the weasel that Rufus was talking about." They continued to watch as Luxiere ordered them to pair up and the weasel seemed to search through the crowd of cadets before he pulled a small blonde to the side and practically dragged the boy to the side of the gym that was as far away from Zack as possible. "And he seems to have already noticed that Zack's observing him."

"Who's that little blonde thing that he took with him?" Genesis moved to get a closer look and the first thing he noticed were the boys wings. "Oh look at that he's friends with the halfling." Sephiroth looked somewhat surprised as the two began sparring. He didn't know what to expect, he thought that at least the smaller cadet would at least be decent at hand to hand, but no, he seemed to be getting knocked to the ground over and over again. The weasel seemed to be grinning, while a scowl was forming on the half crane's face.

From the corner of his vision, Sephiroth could see Zack weaving through the crowd of cadets skilfully. He stopped and talked to a few on the way but seemed to be heading in the direction of the weasel and the halfling. "The puppy has no tact. He's being painfully obvious." Genesis commented.

"Well the weasel seems to have already noticed so what's the point in keeping it a secret that he's interested in him?" Genesis shrugged and they continued to watch as Zack slowly made his way over to the two. The weasel seemed to notice just as Zack was approaching them and he grabbed the blonde and pushed him behind him, growling at the other monster. Zack seemed to hold his hands up in a non threatening way while the blond peeked over the red head's shoulder. "Seph you didn't happen to be trained in reading lips did you?" Genesis questioned, turning his head in Sephiroth's direction.

"I'm a crow Genesis, not a cat."

"It was worth a try…"

* * *

><p>"Hey down kitty, I mean no harm." Reno let out a small hiss at Zack's words.<p>

"Calm down Reno, what's wrong with you?" Cloud questioned as he tried to move past the weasel, but Reno held him back.

"What do you want Lieutenant Fair, because if you don't mind, I'd rather you not interrupt the two of us while we're training."

"I just wanted to see how the two of you were doing. I mean you seem to be beating up on the little cadet over here an awful lot. With the amount of times you seem to be knocking him on his ass, you'd would think that you were picking on him or something."

"It's alright lieutenant. It's not like he's actually hurting me. He does give me advice every time he kicks me down, he just likes to choose different ways to knock me on my ass every round." Cloud defended and Reno smirked at Zack, while the wolf just sighed.

"That's a terrible way to teach him. You should just stick to one way till he's learnt how to defend himself then move onto another technique, otherwise he'll never learn."

"Hey it's how I learnt in the Slums and I'm doing just fine…" Cloud placed a hand gently on Reno's shoulder and the weasel stopped.

"Lieutenant Fair, we have our own way of doing things if you don't mind." Zack seemed to stare at him for a moment before he finally nodded his head and started making his way over to Luxiere. Reno was way too observant for his own good.

"Reno what the hell was that?"

"Cloud did you even see the way he was looking at you?"

"No, even if he was looking at me funny Reno, you have no right to act that way around him. I have no idea what's gotten into you lately." Zack paused and took a quick glance back at the two. Some of the cadets around them had even stopped to watch Cloud scold the red head who had his ears flattened against his head and his tail down almost between his legs. With a small smile, he went back to making his way over to Luxiere with a small bounce to his step.

"What's that all about, are you disrupting my class Fair?" Zack's ears fell back and he stared back at Luxiere with the most innocent face that he could do.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do whatever you did again Zack and I'm kicking your ass, First Class or not, that weasels the only one that kid has you know." Zack shrugged his shoulders.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." With that he headed out of the hall, only to be met with Sephiroth and Genesis. "What are you two doing here?"

"Oh you know, we thought it would be fun to see what you were up to in Luxiere's class. Quite a show you put on there puppy. What did you do to make that weasel hate you so much?" Genesis questioned, and Zack just shrugged.

"He's suspicious of me. Thinks I'm out for his chocobo or something I guess? Seph that paper work you gave me this morning was hell by the way."

"Well then hopefully next time you'll think twice about stealing paper work out of my office then. I figured you needed more since you were stealing some from my desk." Zack poked his tongue out at him while Sephiroth just smirked at his response.

"Anyway." Genesis cut in. "We were just seeing how you were doing. Now, Seph and I have some other work to do, you go do what you do best puppy and go terrorise some other people." Zack then turned his tongue on the other crow.

"Puppy how many times do I have to tell you, don't stick that out unless you're going to use it." Zack purposely stuck his tongue out further at Sephiroth's comment. The crow smirked and nipped at the end and Zack almost immediately pulled it back into his mouth.

"The hell Seph? That wasn't what I was expecting."

"I never said what the consequences were going to be." Genesis rolled his eyes at the two before staring at Sephiroth pointedly. "We'll be going then, play nice puppy." With that the two started making their way towards the elevators.

"Oh by the way." Sephiroth paused as he spoke. "You know weasel's are usually quite solitary creatures. They only group together when they've just left their parents. When they think that they can live on their own they leave the group." This seemed to spark something in Zack's brain and he rushed through to the other elevator, quickly hitting the button for the 69th Floor. Genesis turned to Sephiroth questioningly.

"What was that about?"

"I told you, I'm having fun."


	7. The Plan

_So yeah I've been back for a few days… It's gonna be a hectic few months while I get my life sorted. Joy I'm graduating in May. Good thing I have a few chapters stored up._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Sir there's a puppy here to see you." Rufus stared at his intercom for a few moments, wondering what Zack could be there for, before he pressed the button and called for her to let him in. A few moments later and black haired wolf practically burst through the door and plonked himself in the guest seat.

"You know Rufus every time I come in here it's like your office gets creepier and creepier. I mean how did you even manage to get all those spider webs on the ceiling anyways?" Rufus shrugged his shoulders. He didn't care what people thought of his office. It was his office after all and if he wanted to cover every square inch of it with spider webs, then he would.

"What are you in here for Zack? Did you find out something interesting? I thought that you were just going to wait till I called you." Zack looked a bit sheepish.

"Yeah well, you see, about that…"

"What did you do? Don't tell me that they're already suspicious of you. I thought that you were better at infiltration missions than that."

"Yeah, well that weasel's a bit more perceptive than I thought he would be. I mean, yesterday he was alright but today he was all protective over the little chocobo and I couldn't even get two words in before he was hissing at me and everything."

"So you want to give up on getting information on the two of them?"

"Nah the little chocobo's too interesting. I mean I've never seen someone that good with materia but so terrible at hand to hand before. Plus Luxiere said something interesting today." Rufus raised an eyebrow at this.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, something like how the weasel was the only one that the little chocobo had so if I did anything to the two of them I get the feeling that Luxiere is going to do more than just scold me."

"So what are you going to do then?"

"Well you said Tseng was interested in Reno right?"

"Reno?"

"It's the weasel's name." Zack quickly waved off Rufus' question. "So he's interested in him right?"

"He was the one that suggested that he joined Shinra, meaning that he thinks that he might have some use for the Turks, why?"

"Well we just have to get Tseng interested in him enough so that he'll pull the weasel out of the cadet programme, then I can talk to the little chocobo."

"Are you sure that this is a good idea Zack? Luxiere seems to think that the little halfling needs Reno. You might be putting him in a really bad position if you take him away."

"What's going to happen Rufus? I mean it doesn't look like he has any kind of signs of bruising or anything from any other the other cadets, so he's obviously not being bullied."

"Zack, you know for a wolf, you're not exactly the most observant of creatures." Zack pouted at his words and Rufus just sighed. "What about if we… Drop some hints on how to get into the Turks." The wolf seemed to perk up at this.

"I knew you'd see things my way."

"It will at least give you time to get to know the halfling. Whether or not the weasel lets you get near him or not, you can at least get to know him well enough to form some kind of friendship before you forcefully drag him to be your student."

"What do you mean forcefully drag him?" Zack stared at Rufus innocently. "I'm merely doing what I think is best for the cadet. I mean someone with that much control with materia, it would be a waste to see him stuck in the regular army. They don't even let them use materia down there." Rufus waved him off.

"So what's your plan? I know you have one." Zack grinned.

"First of we need to get Tseng a bit more interested in the weasel." Rufus frowned at this.

"I'm starting to dislike this plan already."

"Not like that. I mean get some information that Tseng doesn't already have about him. Something that will sedate his curiosity."

"And how are we going to do that? He has all the same contacts as I do, not to mention I get the feeling he probably knows all about us going off to watch that halfling every morning." Zack grinned at that.

"He doesn't have the same contacts as me. I'm pretty sure that I can get at least a little bit of information about Reno that Tseng can't. Anyways, just leave that to me. I'll send you whatever I find and you can give it to Tseng to look over. After that we need to get Reno to do something Turk like that will catch Tseng's attention enough to want to pull him out of the cadet programme, but not enough to get him kicked out of Shinra."

"I would prefer to have him kicked out to tell you the truth."

"It's probably just a momentary interest because the weasel has the right stuff to get into the Turks. No point in having a perfectly good Turk kicked out of Shinra just because you don't like him. Hell you haven't even met him yet."

"Your point is?"

"Fine we won't give him any ideas about what to do. If he gets into the Turks then he gets into the Turks, if he doesn't, then all the better for you ok?" Rufus seemed to think over this for a moment before he nodded his head in agreement. "Right, well then I'm going to go talk to some people and I'll get back to you when I have the information that I need."

* * *

><p>Cloud fell back on his bed, glaring at the ceiling, not wanting to look at the monster on the other side of the room. One look at he thought that he'd start throwing things at the weasel in anger. "Reno are you trying to get us kicked out of Shinra or something? Lieutenant Fair is a First Class SOLDER. I mean he could just say one word and we'd be kicked out for good." The weasel was casually peeling off his uniform as if he didn't just have a fight with Zack.<p>

"Why would he do that? He seems to be so interested in you I highly doubt that the thought of doing that would even cross his mind."

"What do you mean?" Reno scoffed.

"Please don't tell me you're that dense." Cloud turned around to look at Reno properly.

"I am that dense. Now what are you on about?"

"Didn't you find it weird that he knew your name? I don't know what he's trying to pull but he's obviously going out of his way to talk to you." Reno grabbed a towel and pulled it around his shoulders before he started making his way towards their bathroom.

"Well I wouldn't blame him for being curious. After all I am… Half. He's probably never seen someone like me before and he's probably just curious."

"Or he could be like that cat and looking to get into your pants."

"Well at least the Lieutenant hasn't pushed me up against the hallway walls and threatened me." Cloud muttered quietly, Reno's ears swivelled back against his head as he stopped at the bathroom door and pinned Cloud with a stare.

"What was that?" Cloud froze.

"Nothing…" Reno started making his way back towards Cloud.

"No you definitely said something. What did you say about that cat? What did he do to you? I swear I'm going to kill him."

"Nothing Reno. He didn't do anything. Besides, the commander stopped him before he could do anything to me."

"Damn it Cloud, it's not what he didn't do, it's what he was going to do that's the problem. What would you have done if the commander didn't show up? Why didn't you report him?"

"Because nothing happened Reno."

"Yeah, nothing happened THIS time. What about next time? What if no one's around at the time. Damn it Cloud you don't THINK do you?"

"I'm not some weak female Reno. No one asked you to protect me." Reno glared at him for a long time before he turned away and started making his way to the bathroom again.

"You know what? Do what you want, but if something else happens, don't expect me to just sit around and do nothing… And if something does happen, you'd better tell me or I won't be happy when I find out."

"You mean if you find out." Cloud rolled his eyes

"No, I mean when."


	8. Phase 1

_Dear readers, I wouldn't normally say this but I am usually open to constructive criticism. If you feel the need to message me criticism in any way please do so nicely. I'm aware there are some people here that feel the need to make themselves feel better by saying "your story sucks" and leaving it at that, but in all honesty, said flame shall be ignored and I'll move on to the next review which will hopefully be a bit nicer._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Rufus! Good news!" Rufus sighed as Zack practically burst into his office with his tail wagging frantically behind him and a small stack of papers in his arms.

"The weasel's died or left Shinra and the Generals finally realised what a useless student you really are and decided to disown you as well as kick you out of their bed?" Zack ignored his comment as he sat himself in Rufus' guest seat and happily dropped the stack of papers in front of the vice president. "I don't see how extra paper work is good news. I have half a mind to throw you out of the window actually."

"Look at it." Rufus raised an eyebrow before he slowly picked up the paper at the top of the stack.

"Information about the weasel?"

"Yup. Aren't my informants great? They're real fast."

"You call waiting almost a month for information real fast? If I could be bothered with getting informants I'm pretty sure that mine would have found this information in a week." Zack pouted before he poked his tongue out at the spider. Rufus just ignored the childish action. "So what does this all generally say?"

"Pretty much just talks about how Reno's apparently from the slums. Orphaned as a pup and was forced to run around fending for himself till someone suggested that he joined Shinra after some incident. I'm guessing that would have been Tseng. After that he obviously got into the cadet programme and well that's all the stuff before that."

"Which explains why Tseng can't find any information on him through his usual networks. Also explains where his last name went. Obviously didn't have one in the first place… Zack stop that it's annoying." The wolf's tail almost immediately stopped thumping against the chair that he was sitting on.

"I can't help it I'm excited."

"Well we can't exactly just throw all this on Tseng right now, he'll get suspicious. We'll wait for a few days before I hand it to him. At least he already knows that I'm annoyed at him so he won't be too suspicious that I went information hunting on my own."

"Excuse me, I did the information hunting."

"Well obviously I'm not going to tell him that or else he's going to ask me why I'm getting you of all people to get information on the weasel for me. By the way, how's your progress with that halfling going? I take it that the weasel's thwarting your every attempt to talk to him?" Zack's tail started wagging again at that.

"Actually he seems to have backed down. He doesn't look too happy about letting me chat to the chocobo, but I'm guessing the little chocobo had a little talk to him. He doesn't do much but glare at me when I'm around but he lets me talk to the chocobo at least and lets me help him out with his hand to hand." Rufus raised an eyebrow at this.

"So it's going well?"

"Well Luxiere hasn't decided to kick me out of his class. I'd almost think that he actually approves of me befriending him."

"Don't get your hopes up yet puppy." Zack pouted again. "We'll put our plan of action through next week. I'll give the information to Tseng then and I want you to help the weasel out with getting into the Turks and then we'll see about pulling the chocobo out of the cadet programme so you can mentor him." Zack nodded his head enthusiastically before he paused and his ears fell back. "What's wrong now?"

"What if he doesn't want to be mentored by me? This is the first time I've actually wanted to teach someone as well." Rufus just waved him off.

"We'll get to that if it ever comes to that. I doubt he'd let the opportunity slide though. His chances at getting into SOLDIER go up if he's taken in by a mentor. It just shows that you see potential in him even if others can't see it." Zack perked up at this, while Rufus moved the information on Reno to the side of his desk. "Now, if anything else comes up we'll talk about it later. Now get out of my office at let me do my work."

"Yes sir!" Zack grinned before he practically bound out of the office. Rufus smiled a little before he picked up the top page of the information that Zack had given to him. He had never seen the weasel before, but if Tseng was interested in him… Well he could see why. He wasn't really that bad looking.

* * *

><p>"Puppy we need to have a little chat." Zack froze at the sound of Angeal's voice. He thought that the SOLDIER had already gone to sleep, well he would usually be asleep at this time, unless he was staying up just so that he could have a 'talk' to Zack, which usually meant that he had done something wrong. Without even knowing what it was, his ears fell back and his tail tucked itself in between his legs as he approached Angeal slowly as if the other monster was about to attack him from where he was sitting on the couch.<p>

"What did I do wrong this time?"

"Nothing." Zack's tail shot back up at this and started wagging in a nervous gesture, which often happened when he wasn't sure what to expect from whatever the situation was that he was in at the time. "Come here and sit down." Slowly, Zack settled himself down on the seat beside Angeal. "You're starting to worry me a little bit. At first you were just going off to the training rooms early in the morning and I thought that you were just training. Sephiroth and Genesis said it was just wishful thinking, but we figured that you weren't doing anything bad so we just left it. Then just a few weeks ago you started heading down to the slums without being assigned any kind of mission." Slowly, Zack's tail started wagging at a more frantic pace and Angeal raised an eyebrow at this… What was he so happy about?

"Oh sorry." The wolf seemed to catch himself and his tail slowed to a stop. "I know you're worried. I just got a little bit happy that you were actually worried about me. Not that I'm doing anything bad, it's just that neither of you really get worried about me. It's kind of endearing."

"Yes well…" Angeal looked a little uncomfortable. "Sephiroth and Genesis were going to come and talk to you as well, but they had other things to do so it's just me. Now, you're avoiding the question. What have you been doing?"

"Do you trust me?" Angeal sighed.

"Depends on what it is puppy. I wouldn't trust you within a kilometre of the chocobo stalls, but when it comes to missions, I'd trust you with my life."

"Good." Zack's tail started wagging again. "I can't tell you what I'm doing, it's a secret, but you'll find out eventually. I promise it's nothing bad ok? It's just something that I really want to do and it'll make me really happy if it works out and just let me do this ok?" Angeal seemed to stare at him for a long time before he sighed again.

"So it's definitely something that isn't dangerous?" Zack nodded. "Are you sure that you don't want to tell me what it is?" Zack nodded his head again. "One more question." Zack's ears perked up in attention. "Does this have something to do with those papers that you stole out of Sephiroth's office a month ago?" A small smirk appeared on Zack's face and Angeal let off a exasperated sigh. "Alright then, you can go and get ready for bed now." With a large grin Zack headed for the bathroom. "One more thing before you go." Zack stopped and looked back at Angeal questioningly. "You'll tell me if something goes wrong right?" In a second, Angeal found himself with an arm full of Zack.

"I love it when you're all worried about me. Don't worry, if anything bad happens I'll tell you." With that he bounded back into the bathroom and Angeal let off a small chuckle.


	9. How Tseng met Reno

_I'd like to say thank you to all the people that have sent me very supportive reviews.  
>To Sparklillian, that is something that I'm working on. I'll try to put more Cloud interacting with his fellow cadets in future chapters after I'm done with posting what I've already written.<br>I'd like to say a Merry Christmas to everyone in NZ and the people in around the same timeline as me. To everyone else. Merry Christmas for tomorrow._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Tseng sighed as he laid back on his soft plush chair. He knew for a fact that Rufus had been annoyed with him for a great deal of the year. Ever since the cadet programme started up Rufus hadn't been too happy with him and he knew perfectly well what the reason for the spiders' annoyance was.

With a few clicks of his mouse, he brought up Reno's file on his computer. He had been intrigued by this weasel ever since he had first met him in the slums. Some how the little brat had managed to make his way into Don Corneo's mansion while they were in the middle of an information trade despite the amount of security.

Tseng had been undercover at the time and as much as he hated turning his form into a woman's, it had been necessary so that Shinra wouldn't be associated with the sleaze. He had caught the weasel just as he was about to leave the mansion.

* * *

><p>Just as Tseng exited Don Corneo's office, he heard a small thump coming from the room down the hall. From what he remembered that door lead down to the dungeon's where one of Corneo's lackeys usually brought down the girls that the Don didn't pick as his fun for the night. Cautiously, he approached the door. His hand reaching for his concealed gun that rested against his upper thigh.<p>

The only thing Tseng liked about being in a female form was that he could wear a dress and hide his gun beneath it at the same time. He couldn't imagine how awkward it would be to hide his gun down his pants as a man.

Slowly, he reached for the door handle and paused as the sound of a candle hitting the floor was heard from the other side. Taking slow, deep breaths he turned the door handle and shoved the door open, pulling out his gun at the same time, only to find himself staring at a knife, while his gun was pointing at the other person's head. As far as he could tell the red headed man standing before him was some kind of animal monster. Judging by the short tail and the tiny ears, he was perhaps some kind of rodent.

"What the hell…? A chick? I thought it was going to be one of the Don's cronies or something." Tseng's eyes narrowed at the man. Did he not notice that he was being held at gun point? The rodent was quick to lower his knife.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know who's mansion this is?" The red head raised an eyebrow at Tseng's question.

"What are you new to this part of Midgar or something? I break in here all the time. All the girls around here know me." That was interesting. Corneo usually had guards posted everywhere and cameras as well as magical wards had been set up, so if this monster could get past them, that meant that either the system was lacking or this monster could make a good addition to the Turks depending on how this conversation went.

"You could say that… So will you humour me and tell me who you are?" The red headed monster grinned at Tseng's question.

"Don't know if I should tell you. After all, you are holding a gun to my face. I might tell you if you put it down though." Tseng considered this for a moment. His instincts as a Turk was screaming at him not to, but this monster actually thought he was a weak female, so he should be alright, besides, it wasn't as if he couldn't take him down even if he managed to steal his gun from him. Slowly he lowered his weapon and before he knew it, it was sailing through the air and landed right in the other monster's hands. "You know you really shouldn't listen to creepy men that come out of a basement." Tseng raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't think this creepy man would be that much of a bad guy, but what makes you think I don't have another gun hidden somewhere on me." The red head smirked.

"I don't, but if you do I'm sure that a pretty little thing like you wouldn't really shoot me. So why don't you answer something for me?"

"Since you're the one with the gun I don't really think I have much of a choice." The red heads' smirk seemed to widen at this.

"What's a pretty little thing like you doing wandering around the Don's mansion. Since you're not still in his room I'm guessing that you weren't his girl of the night, but I'm pretty sure that either one of his cronies' would have picked you up or kicked you out of the mansion by now."

"His subordinates have apparently gone out somewhere. I was told to find my own way out of the mansion when I heard you… Shuffling around down there."

"Ah you heard me? Guess either I'm getting out of practise or you're not really a bird type." The man eyed the wings on Tseng's back.

"I just have unnaturally good hearing for a bird." Tseng lied easily. "So you going to tell me who you are and why you're here?"

"Ah well, since you've been such a good sport I guess I can give that to you. Name's Reno. You know the Don's got a real nice stash of cigs that sell real high in the slums." So he was there to steal stuff. Nothing of interest really, not something to kill the man over.

"Interesting…" With one swift movement, his gun was sailing out of Reno's hands and Tseng caught it before sliding it back into its holder. "If that's all you're here for I guess that has nothing to do with me." He let his magic go and felt his dress morph into a suit and his body expanded and heightened as his wings disappeared and his ears and tail reformed. "For your information, I am the head of the Department of Administrative Research in Shinra. Also known as…"

"The Turks…" Tseng smirked at the gobsmacked look on Reno's face.

"You have some interesting talents. You should join the cadet programme. If your skills are anything like you've shown me today, you'll be first in line to join the Turks." With that he turned tail and started making his way out of the Don's mansion, leaving Reno there still staring at him.

* * *

><p>The sound of his office door being slammed open jumped Tseng out of his thoughts. It was a good thing he was controlled enough not to actually jump. Instead, he sat up and looked in the direction of his door to see Rufus slamming the door shut, while strutting in like he owned the place. "What brings you here." The spider smirked at his words.<p>

"I have a present for you." Tseng raised an eyebrow. They both knew that Rufus hadn't been happy with him, so him bringing a present couldn't be a good thing. Especially if what Sephiroth had said was true and the spider had been hanging out with Zack a lot more than they usually did. It wasn't uncommon to see the vice president with the First Class SOLDIER, but it wasn't common for them to be meeting up with each other every day unless they were planning something. Rufus seemed to pout when he noticed the suspicious look on Tseng's face. "It's nothing bad." Sighing, the Turk laid back down on his chair.

"What is it?" A file that Tseng hadn't noticed Rufus holding before landed on his desk and he stared at it for a second before looking back up at Rufus questioningly.

"You were looking for information on that weasel right? To see if he was good enough for the Turks." Slowly, the fox nodded his head, knowing that the wrong move could easily anger his younger lover. "Well, there it is right in front of you. All the information you could possibly want to know on him." Carefully, Tseng picked up the first page and skimmed over it before putting it down on the desk and giving Rufus a hard look.

"Where did you get this information from?" Rufus looked surprised.

"Some informants I have." In a second Rufus was pinned to Tseng's desk by his shoulders.

"You will tell me where you got that information from Rufus Shinra. The only way you could have gotten any of that information is if you were good friends with those honey bee whores. Now tell me where you got that information from." Rufus had to hide his surprised look this time. He honestly had no idea that Zack had those kind of informants, but that didn't explain why Tseng was so angry…

Wait a minute… Was he… Jealous? Did he really think that Rufus would go down to Honey Bee and…?

A small smirk made its way to his lips before he pushed Tseng off him.

"Where I got that information from is none of your business." He ignored the glare that Tseng was sending him as he dusted the invisible dirt off his jacket. "Anyways, you have your information on the weasel. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have people to see." With that he walked out of the office, slamming the door shut behind him. His smirk widened as he heard something shatter against the wall. He never thought that he would ever see Tseng lose his composure like that.

He would have to thank Zack later.


	10. Phase 2

_You know after reading this I realised that I really do put women in a really bad light so I'm going to explain myself._

_Rufus hates women mostly because well… He's rich, they'd be throwing themselves at him trying to get into his pants and everything._

_Honeybee girls and girls that go to the Don's mansion… Well they are pretty much… You know… Anyways not ALL the girls in this story are like that… Just the ones that have shown up or have been spoken of so far._

_Anyways, Happy New Year~! I'm heading up to Palmerston for a while after today and I have no idea when I'm coming back, but don't worry I'll write… Just might not have internet to post._

_Also I apologise for the mess of a last chapter. It's what happens when I post without reading over it. It's been fixed._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"He did what? Really? Did you get a video of it? Why not? It would have been epic. I've never seen him lose his cool before. It would have been awesome blackmail material."

Sephiroth paused in drinking his tea and looked up from his papers as Zack walked into the kitchen, still in his pyjamas and talking animatedly to someone on his PHS. He was holding the device in one hand while the other was reaching for his usual cereal bowl.

"Nah, I didn't get any of it from there… Well… Technically I did but not directly from there. Anyways, if you want him to believe that you got it from there, feel free, not like he needs to know that I was the one that got the information for you."

Zack started pulling down his cereal from one of the cupboards just as Angeal and Genesis entered the kitchen. They both stared at Zack in surprise as he started pouring his cereal with a huge smile on his face. It wasn't normal to see the puppy so happy in the morning before his usual cup of hot chocolate.

"Yeah, I'll talk to her tomorrow, not today. It's our first day off at the same time in ages, so we're going just to hang out in the apartment together… Well that's what we had planned. I think Gen said something about getting some Wutain and then we're probably just going to spend the rest of the day watching some movies… Yeah, I'll make sure that the information gets to him somehow… Remember, if anything else happens you better keep me up to date… Yeah no problem… I'll catch you later then." With that Zack flipped his phone shut and tucked it into his back pocket before pouring milk onto his cereal and picking up the bowl. He turned in the direction of the table, only to stop when he noticed that everyone was staring at him. He stared back at them all with a confused expression on his face.

"What?"

"I take it that you were talking to Rufus on the phone?" Zack nodded at Angeal's question. "What did he have to say that's gotten you so happy?" Zack's grin returned before he bounded over to his seat, not really caring that the milk in his cereal bowl was dangerously close to splashing on the floor.

"You remember that weasel that you saw me with right?" Both Sephiroth and Genesis nodded. "Well I got a whole lot of information on him and gave it to Rufus to give to Tseng right?" Sephiroth raised a hand for the wolf to stop.

"From what I heard Tseng said that the information could have only come from the girls at Honey Bee." Zack was quick to wave off the concern.

"You guys remember my friend Aerith right?"

"The one that Hojo's interested in. She's the one that sells flowers in the Slums right?" Genesis questioned and Zack nodded his head.

"She sells flowers near Honey Bee. The girls sometimes ask her to carry certain types of flowers with her so that the guys that go around buying them will buy flowers that they actually like. I asked if she could get any information on Reno and apparently when she expressed an interest in him, they got real concerned and told her everything they knew. You know, the whole protect the poor innocent little chick who's interested in a big bad weasel. Anyways, she got all the information from them. All I needed to do was buy a bunch of flowers and pick it up."

"That explains where that bouquet in the lounge came from." Genesis remarked.

"Hey at least it's a nice bouquet." Zack defended.

"I wasn't complaining puppy. I was merely making a statement."

"Anyways, Rufus gave the information to Tseng yesterday and apparently he blew a gasket, asking Rufus where he got the information from and when Rufus just walked out of the room, he threw a ten thousand gil vase at the wall." Genesis let out a bark of laughter while Angeal gave him a stern look, making the crow settle down with just a small chuckle.

"Puppy don't you think you should tell Tseng where you got that information from?" Zack pouted at Angeal's question.

"Let him have his fun Angeal." They all stared at Sephiroth in surprise. "It's not often that we've seen the Turk so flustered, not to mention he probably deserves it. From what I've heard he's been ignoring the vice president and I'm guessing that weasel that you and he have been following after is the reason." Zack nodded.

"Wait what are you talking about?" Angeal questioned looking between the two. "How come I didn't know about any of this?"

"Don't be surprised Ang. I'm only just hearing about most of this now as well." Genesis said in an attempt to not let the other monster feel left out. "Zack's best friends with Rufus remember? And Sephiroth's always with Tseng when they're working."

"Basically." Sephiroth explained. "After the cadet programme started Tseng started getting interested in some kind of project. I'm guessing that it was finding out information on that weasel. Am I right puppy?" Zack nodded. "I'm guessing Rufus wasn't exactly happy about the fact that Tseng was pretty much neglecting their relationship, which is why he used Tseng's assumption that he had gotten the information from Honey Bee girls to his advantage." He looked to Zack for confirmation and the puppy nodded his head again.

"Maybe we should have a talk to Tseng about it then."

"Angeal you are far too noble. Is it just you or do all condors feel the need to do what they think is the right thing to do?" Genesis questioned exasperatedly and Angeal glared back at him.

"I just don't see the point in people suffering unnecessarily, unlike you who likes to mentally torture cadets under the premise that you're training their mentality."

"It's not my fault that they start whimpering at the mere sight of me."

"Well maybe if you didn't throw fireballs around like you're some kind of maniac…"

"Enough you two." They both stopped at Sephiroth's commanding tone. "Genesis is right." Genesis grinned and poked his tongue out at Angeal, who glared back at him. "Not about Angeal being too noble. We should just leave Rufus and Tseng as they are. Tseng needs to learn on his own and it is not our place to interfere. Am I understood." They all nodded their heads before they settled down and ate in silence. Neither one of them noticed Sephiroth smirking as he picked up his papers again. He really was having a lot of fun.

* * *

><p>"Cissnei!" Before Zack could even think to hug the female Turk from behind, she had one of her Shuriken out aiming straight for his neck.<p>

"Don't even think about it Zack. What do you want?" As soon as he had calmed down, she pulled back her weapon and turned around so that she could look at him properly.

"I have a question." She sighed before she gestured for him to continue. "Say I have a friend right?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"And which friend would this be? The one that lives in your cupboard or have you actually made some real friends that aren't all in your head?" Zack pouted.

"I have real friends, like Kunsel and Luxiere."

"Yeah your only two friends in the world. Now what is it about this friend of yours? Did you want some information about him or something?" Zack stopped at that.

"Actually that would be a good idea… Actually nah I'll just find out stuff about him on my own. Anyways, this friend of mine wants to get into the Turks."

"He doesn't happen to be a red headed weasel that our boss seems to be interested in does he?" Zack looked surprised at this.

"Do you know everything?"

"No, it's something that Tseng was talking about since the cadet programme started up. He said that we should keep an eye out for him and see what we think about letting him join."

"Well, anyways, this friend of mine wants to get into the Turks right?"

"I'm not telling you how I got in." Zack pouted as his ears fell back against his head. His tail tucked its way between his legs and his eyes got impossibly wider as they started watering. Cissnei merely stared back at him as if the look didn't have an effect on her.

The two seemed to have a stare down for a few moments before Cissnei sighed. "Fine." He grinned at this as both his tail and his ears shot back up to their usual position. "I didn't do anything." Zack pouted again as Cissnei continued. "I was trained to be a Turk since I was a kid, so naturally I'd be offered a position. I think Two Guns used to work for the Don before he was offered a position as a Turk. Oh Rod was offered a position when he stole a bike from Shinra." Zack made a face.

"Anyone ever tell you that you guys have really weird names." The female Turk rolled her eyes at him.

"You know that they're not our real names. They're the names that we were given to use between each other. If someone knew our real names you don't know what kind of a mess it could get either of us into." Zack blinked before grinning.

"So what's your name that they use for you?"

"Shuriken." Zack pouted.

"Is that it?" She shrugged. "So I'm guessing your nickname is based on whatever kind of weapon you use?" She nodded. "So back to this question about how to get into the Turks."

"Before Tseng took over, our previous boss just took one look at our abilities and decided that we were needed to join the Turks so he offered us the job. I think Tseng does stuff differently. He's probably looking for more proof that the guy has what it takes to work with us…"

"So you're saying…"

"He needs to do something to make us notice him but not make a spectacle of himself. Something that shows that he's worth the effort to train… Probably something that you won't be able to help him with." Zack's eyes started watering again.

"So you're saying I can't help him?"

"Not with your amateur skills. Now then should I be shooting that little blonde thing that just went scurrying off or is he a part of this plan that you seem to have roped me into?" Zack's expression once again slowly morphed into a grin.

"You know how much I love you Cissnei?"

"You owe me dinner at some place really expensive."


	11. How to use a Cloud

_Hi everyone. I'm back in Wellington now._

_Thank you very much DeadlySakura15 for the wonderful piece of fanart. If any of you would like to see it, the link is in the reviews._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cloud poked his head around the door to his and Reno's room to check if his roommate was there. There was the sound of water running, indicating that the weasel was in the bathroom. Sighing in relief, he walked into the room. Closing the door behind him before settling himself in the middle of his bed, wondering how he was going to relay what he had just heard without telling Reno that he had heard Zack talking to Cissnei about it in the lobby.

There was the sound of the water shutting off and a few seconds later, Reno was walking back in with just a pair of black pants on and a towel around his shoulders. He was using the end of the towel to dry off his hair. "Where did you go off to chickabo? You didn't come back after training. Lost you in the crowd. I thought something happened to you, but when I went back, you weren't there."

"Vice president Shinra caught me and asked me to take some papers for him to the receptionist in the lobby. I heard some really interesting stuff there."

"Really? Like what?" Reno finished drying off his hair and threw the towel on his bed before he started rummaging through his drawers for proper clothes. Cloud paused for a moment, wondering how he was going to put this. He was going to have to put all his lying skills into practise.

"There were two people discussing how to get into the Turks." Reno almost immediately stopped what he was doing and slowly turned to look at Cloud.

"What did you just say?"

"There were two people in the lobby discussing how to get into the Turks." Reno moved so that he was sitting opposite Cloud on the bed.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah… Some girl she was wearing a suit and she has kind of brownish red hair. Don't know what kind of monster she was though. She was in her human form." Reno's eyes seemed to light up.

"She's probably a Turk as well. The only one that I know about is Tseng… You know cause he's the head of the department. There isn't really much information about all the others. What about the other person that was with her?" Cloud shrugged. Just don't think about the fact that you're lying. Just look at him normally and talk as if you really believed what you were saying.

"Some guy. He was wearing a Soldier uniform, but I don't think that I've ever met him before." There was no indication that Reno didn't believe his lie.

"So what did they say?"

"Something about proving that you're good enough to get into the Turks. The woman said something about you doing something that would catch their attention but it can't be something that would put you in any kind of spot light. Well she said 'not make a spectacle of himself' specifically."

"Himself?" Reno raised an eyebrow and Cloud was quick to follow up with another lie.

"He was asking how he could get into the Turks. I guess he probably thinks that Turks get paid better than SOLDIERS do… Either that or he just thinks that their job is easier." Reno snorted.

"Their training isn't as bad as SOLDIER I don't think. I'm pretty sure I heard that they specialise in only one weapon of their choice. Unlike in the normal military. If you're a cadet you get a gun and you're forced to learn hand to hand combat in case your weapons taken from you. If you're in SOLDIER you get a sword and materia. Turks have it way easy." Cloud shook his head.

"If you get into First Class you get to pick what kind of sword you choose. At least, that's what commander Fair told me." Reno made a face at the mention of that name. "That's why he and General Hewley use Buster Swords and General Rhapsodos uses a materia infused sword."

"Anyone tell you that the information that you have on the First Classes is really creepy?" Cloud poked his tongue out at Reno who merely laughed it off. "Anyway, what did you mean by Turks have it easy? If they don't learn hand to hand then what happens if their weapon is taken from them?" Reno smirked.

"You either run and get it or you're dead. I guess they're all proficient in using guns as well, so they might all carry one with them. I mean I don't know what Tseng uses but I'm pretty sure he wasn't just bluffing when he said he might have another gun on him when I first met him." Reno got up off the bed. Setting his feet on the ground before he messed up Cloud's hair good naturedly. The halfling scrunched up his face, pushing his hand away, causing Reno to grin. "Thanks for the information chickabo." Cloud stared back at Reno with a somewhat questioning look on his face.

"What are you going to do Reno?" The weasel grinned.

"Something Turk like. I'm going to bug Tseng's office and see how long it takes him to realise it's even there in the first place… And you're going to help me."

* * *

><p>"You know watching him is starting to get really boring." Rufus commented as both he and Zack watched from the observatory box above the training room that Cloud was in. "He's been throwing spell after spell of fires at bolts at that dummy for the past few days and all it's been doing is making the room smell like burnt material. I can almost smell it all the way up here already."<p>

"Wonder where he got those from. He only just started throwing around level two spells so they're probably new cause I'm pretty sure his last fire materia was mastered."

"Maybe he bought them." Rufus offered.

"With the wages they get as cadets? Doubt it."

"Maybe someone gave them to him as a present?" Zack looked shocked.

"Materia? As a present? Who in their right mind would give away a present that costs like a hundred gil down in the slums?"

"I'm pretty sure that shiny new Buster on your back that your lovers gave to you for your birthday last year cost a lot more than a hundred gil." Zack shifted under Rufus' gaze.

"Yeah, well that's different I'm with them and as far as I know Cloud isn't with anyone." There was a loud crash and they both turned their attention back to the training room. Cloud had started throwing level three spells at the dummy. "You're kidding me right? Did he really just level up a materia to level three in less than a week?"

"Well it doesn't really take that much to level up a materia through the first level. He did manage to get it to level two on day two. It's taken him three days to get it from two to three."

"Yeah, but it took me ages to get all of mine mastered. Almost a month."

"His magic power is higher than an average monster. We both knew this already Zack. You probably only use your materia in combat and even then you're not using up all your magic power. He's been using the same pieces for hours every day till his magic power's nearly gone, not that he really needs it. Cadets aren't even supposed to be touching materia till they're actually accepted into SOLDIER."

"You know now that I think about it… I wonder why he's training so hard to get those mastered." Zack looked thoughtful.

"Maybe it has something to do with the weasel? After all, he did start training with that materia after you tricked Cissnei into telling you how to get into the Turks. How did that dinner go by the way?" Zack groaned at the memory as he covered his face with his hands.

"I thought she had just been joking about picking an expensive meal. My wallet had moths coming out of it after she was done. I didn't even know that girls could eat that much."

"She is a Turk. They are somewhat mako enhanced like the rest of SOLDIER so I wouldn't be surprised if she ate more than most girls that you know."

"Then I had Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis catch me. They were all like 'what do you think you're doing puppy going out to dinner with someone else?' Then Cissnei had to go and tell them the truth and then Angeal started lecturing me about interfering with other people's business and Sephiroth had this weird smile on his face, while Genesis was just standing there looking amused."

"I thought that General Hewley would be used to you interfering with people by now."

"Genesis said something about him being annoyed that Sephiroth let me interfere but he wouldn't let him."

* * *

><p>Cloud was mentally cursing the crow blood that flowed through his veins. Reno knew for a fact that Cloud had an obsession with shiny objects. How he found out he had no idea, but his first guess was that Reno probably figured it out when he caught Cloud polishing his materia one day. He had a habit of just staring at them once they were all clean and shiny. It wasn't like he could help it, the glow of materia was just mesmerising. Half the time he literally just couldn't take his eyes off it.<p>

Shaking his head to stop himself from obsessing over the thought of shiny objects, Cloud threw another fire three at the dummy that was facing him.

Reno had offered to take him down to the slums and buy Cloud any kind of earring he wanted and they'd get his ears pierced if he just did this one job for him. He had claimed it was because he knew just how good Cloud was at using materia as well as the fact that he was the only one he know that was small enough to fit through vents.

He threw another fire three at the dummy in front of him before he felt his head start to hurt. His magic power was running dangerously low and it was almost time to head back to wake up Reno. It would probably take him another week to master the two materia anyway. It should have been enough that they were both at level three, but he wanted them both mastered before he started using them for their actual purpose.

Reno had given them both to him as another bribe to get him to do what he wanted. After mastering them both he'd have to start learning how to unseal and reseal vents without it looking suspicious and then he'd have to learn how to mess with a camera from a distance. He cursed again. When this was over, he was going to pick the most expensive earring he could find.


	12. Zack's birthday bash

_Just a something that IchikoKitsuneKoumori brought up. Monster-Human relationships aren't common because certain deformations can occur like say Cloud's small wings would be thought to be a deformation from a Monster-Human conception (deformations aren't a definite though.) From what I've noticed in the Love Monster Manga, it seems like Monsters generally are interested in their own type, but can be with others._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Hey Spikey!" Cloud stopped and only just managed to turn around before he was almost bowled over by an excited Zack.

"Um… Lieutenant Fair…" He looked somewhat uncomfortable having the wolf hug him. Zack hadn't touched him since that first day that he had come to their lesson, not to mention he had never been alone with the Lieutenant before so it just made this situation all the more awkward.

"Zack! Let my student go right now." He sighed in relief at the sound of Luxiere's voice. Zack turned in Luxiere's direction, pouted and, unfortunately for Cloud, kept his hold on him. In fact his arms seemed to tighten around him as Luxiere approached them with Kunsel trailing behind him.

"Nah ah. I found him first mine now."

"Well technically Luxiere met him first considering that he's his instructor so wouldn't that mean that he belongs to Luxiere?" The other SOLDIER questioned. Zack's pout quickly morphed into a glare.

"Who's side are you on Kunsel mine or his?"

"Err…" Kunsel looked between the two. "Sorry Luxiere. It's Zack's day today." Luxiere sighed before he sent Cloud an apologetic look.

"Sorry Strife. I tried." Zack grinned at this before he finally let go of the cadet.

"So what are you doing out here Spikey? It's a weekend you cadets have the day off. I thought that you'd be with that bodyguard of yours under the plate like the other cadets do." Cloud shook his head.

"Reno only goes out when he needs to. I think he's back at our rooms right now. I was just heading back to my room now."

"So you're not doing anything today?" Zack's look turned even more excited when Cloud shook his head. The Lieutenant then grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him in the opposite direction of his rooms. "Good you can come with us then."

"Zack I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be taking Strife with you." Luxiere tried to reason as he and Kunsel trailed after the two.

"Don't be such a spoil sport. You're starting to sound like Angeal. Besides you guys were the ones that said I can do anything I wanted right?" Luxiere sighed as they all entered the elevators.

"Um sir…" Cloud turned to Luxiere as the elevator doors closed. "What exactly is going on?"

"Oh… Sorry Strife, today's Lieutenant Fair's birthday. Like every year Kunsel and I were just going to take him out drinking… But now that you're here…"

"We'll still go drinking." Zack said excitedly. "It's not like Spikey has any practical exams tomorrow so he can deal with a little headache right?"

"Well knowing you, you'd probably feed him enough alcohol to give him a headache the size of a behemoth the next day." Kunsel said as the elevator stopped.

"Hey I know when enough's enough." Zack pouted as they stepped out and started heading down the hallway, dragging Cloud along with them.

"Yeah you know when it's enough for you. You have a tendency to forget that cadets don't have mako enhancements like the rest of us so their tolerance level is lower." Luxiere pointed out. Cloud cleared his throat to get their attention and they all turned to look at him.

"Um sirs… You know I'm underage right?"

"That's fine Spikey, the guys at the bar know me. They'll let you in even if you are underage." Zack grinned while Luxiere just sent the wolf a stern look.

"You are aware of the fact that serving alcohol to a minor is a felony right Zack?"

"Hey, Genesis used to give me alcohol all the time when I was Spikey's age."

"Well Genesis used to give it to you within the confines of your own home." Luxiere pointed out.

"Not to mention he had to do it away from General Sephiroth and General Hewley or else they would have both given him a lecture about it." Kunsel added. They stopped at an apartment where Zack slid his keycard through the door and it opened to reveal a somewhat messy apartment. It wasn't too bad. There were a few clothes thrown in places. The rubbish bin was over flowing and there were a few pizza boxes scattered around. It wasn't exactly a pig sty, but that wasn't to say it was exactly clean either.

"General Sephiroth would have a fit if he saw your room right now." Luxiere commented as they stepped in, carefully avoiding the boxes.

"Well it's a good thing he isn't here then isn't it?" Zack remarked as he closed the door behind them. "Besides, it's cleaner than it usually is."

"That's only because I made you clean up most of it a few days ago." They all jumped at the sound of the new voice as Angeal walked into the room from the kitchen. "What are you doing back so early puppy? I thought that you were going out with your friends?" He nodded at the two in greeting and they both saluted back. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Cloud who looked like he wanted to just sink into the floor and disappear. "I see that you've stolen a cadet puppy."

"Yeah that's Spikey. He's one of Luxiere's students. Isn't he cute? I was going to take him out drinking with us but he needs to change out of his clothes. I'm not taking him wearing his cadet stuff."

"You sure he wants to go with you Zack? He doesn't look like he wants to be here… Not to mention he doesn't look like he's of the right age to be drinking." Angeal pointed out and Zack just shrugged.

"He's just nervous Angeal, and don't worry, I'll make sure he doesn't drink a drop." He ignored the disbelieving look on everyone's faces. "Anyways, come on Spikey, we'll go to my room and you can use the shower and we'll pick out some clothes for you before we head out." Without even giving Cloud the time to answer, he started dragging Cloud towards his room.

"Today's going to be one hell of a night." Luxiere sighed while Angeal chuckled.

"Not only are you going to have to look out for Zack, but you're going to have to look out for that cadet he seems to have taken too." Both Kunsel and Luxiere stared at him.

"You're alright with this?" Kunsel questioned and Angeal shrugged.

"It's his birthday after all. Might as well let him be happy. The two of you will make sure that nothing happens right?" They both frantically nodded their heads and Angeal smiled. "Good. Make sure Zack gets back before eleven. Sephiroth, Genesis and I still have yet to give him his present."

"Yes sir!" Both replied as Angeal made his way back into the kitchen and they both waited for Zack to come back with the cadet.

* * *

><p>Cloud really didn't know what was going on. One minute Zack was hanging him a glass of some kind of pink liquid that both Kunsel and Luxiere had identified as juice and the next minute his head was swimming and he was giggling madly at Zack, who was trying to balance a chip on his nose. "Just wait for it Spikey." Once the chip was perfectly balanced, he threw it up before catching it perfectly in his mouth. Cloud laughed and clapped his hands while Zack grinned and Kunsel and Luxiere both shook their heads. Zack frowned at the two when he noticed that they weren't clapping with Cloud. "Oi you two, why aren't you impressed by my awesomeness like Spikey is?"<p>

"After the first hundred times seeing it, it's not really that impressive Zack." Luxiere pointed out while Zack pouted.

"I'd like to see you try it."

"I don't want to make a fool out of myself. You do it enough for the two of us." Zack just poked his tongue out at him before turning his attention back to Cloud and his eyes fell on the empty drink in front of the blond.

"Cloudy, you've finished your drink!" He quickly waved over one of the waitresses before plonking Cloud's glass on the tray that she was holding. "Another one for my friend here."

"One Ark Dragon coming up." Both Kunsel and Luxiere gave Zack a stern look and he stared back at them innocently.

"We thought that was just grapefruit juice Zack."

"It is grapefruit juice though… Mixed with some Nibel liquor and a shot of tequila." The waitress came back a second later, winking at Zack, who smiled back. She placed the glass of pink liquid in front of Cloud, who took a large gulp from it. A second later he was making a face and he started turning green.

"Hey cadet you feeling ok?" Kunsel questioned, placing a hand against the halfling's back. Cloud shook his head but stopped almost immediately. The room was spinning and the noise around him was starting to make his head pound.

"I… Think I'm going to be sick…" As quickly as he could, Luxiere dragged the cadet towards the bathroom and hauled him into one of the stalls. Both Zack and Kunsel followed after him, carefully dodging the crowd of people. Once Cloud was safely hugging one of the toilets, Luxiere gave Zack a stern look, causing the wolf's tail to fall between his legs.

"I'm sorry?" He gave Luxiere his puppy eyes and the other SOLDIER sighed.

"When we get back, you're going to write a notice excusing Cloud from his classes, do you understand?" Zack nodded. "Now, we're going to have to figure out how we're going to get him back to the barracks." Luxiere sighed and Zack raised his hand.

"I'll make sure that he gets back there." Luxiere gave him a suspicious look and Zack lifted up both of his hands in surrender. "Promise, nothing else will happen to him while he's with me. SOLDIER's honour." There was a groan coming from the toilet and they all turned in Cloud's direction.

"You alright?" Kunsel was the one to question him.

"I'm never accepting a drink from the Lieutenant ever again." Both Kunsel and Luxiere chuckled while Zack pouted.

"That's a good idea cadet." Kunsel said, ignoring the hurt look that Zack sent in his direction. "Come on then cadet. The Lieutenant has kindly offered to take you back to the barracks." Cloud shook his head, pushing himself away from the toilet and somehow managing to steady himself against the stall.

"I can get there on my own." Luciere sighed. The cadet was a bit stubborn when he was drunk it seemed.

"At least let him bring you near the barracks. We don't want something happening to you while you're in that state. Besides, Zack needs to repent for getting you drunk.' Cloud made a face, but decided to agree, Even he knew that he was too drunk to defend himself. He could barely even think straight despite the fact that he had thrown up most of what Zack had been feeding him. He felt an arm wrap its way around his waist and he turned to stare at Zack, who was holding him up.

"Come on then Spikey. Let's get you back to the barracks before you pass out." He turned his attention back to Kunsel and Luxiere. "You gonna be alright?" Luxiere was quick to wave him off.

"Get going puppy. The generals are all probably waiting patiently for you to get back so that you can continue to celebrate with them. We'll take care of the bill." Zack grinned.

"Thanks." With that, he started making his way back Shinra with the blonde cadet in tow.


	13. The Aftermath

_I have no excuse _ I'm sorry?_

_Random point that I never brought up that I might have to end up incorporating into the first chapters if I ever get around to it. Humans and monsters are separate. The few humans that know about monsters only know because they're married to one. Midgar is an all monster city there are strict regulations and guards that ensure humans don't enter the city._

_One thing about crows, they have the ability to erase people's memories, yes it is one of the abilities they had in Love Monster not something I made up for convenience, which is why Midgar can stay as an all monster community. The reason Cloud's mother doesn't want anyone to know is also another concept from love monster but if you don't know, then telling you will just spoil it._

_I hope this answered a few of your questions._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cloud felt like crap when he woke up. The room was spinning, his head was pounding and he could feel this horrible burning sensation at the back of his throat. "You're up?" He sat up to face his room-mate, who was sitting beside his bed, only to stop to steady himself as the room spinning got worse. He felt hands against his chest and allowed himself to be settled back into his bed. "I wouldn't try that again if I was you."

"What happened last night?" All he could remember at the moment was that he had met General Hewley at some point the day before.

"The Lieutenant brought you back to the barracks last night. You were drunk as hell and fell dead asleep as soon as he dumped you onto your bed. He said that you had been excused from your classes today." Cloud groaned as his memory slowly started to piece itself back together and he buried his face into his pillow, muttering to himself. "You might want to remove yourself from your pillow and try that again. I don't speak pillow." Cloud turned his head back in Reno's direction before he repeated himself.

"I said I'm pathetic." Reno raised an eyebrow questioningly. "It was the Lieutenant's birthday yesterday. I think he slipped me some drinks, because the next thing I knew, I was throwing up in the toilets." A frown appeared on Reno's face.

"Right after I tell you to be careful around him, this is what you do." Cloud pouted. "Don't give me that look, it doesn't work on me. Really Cloud, you need to learn to be more cautious. Just because the Lieutenant is one of your heroes, doesn't mean that he doesn't have weird motives for chasing after you like he does." Cloud gave him an odd look.

"The Lieutenant doesn't chase after me." Reno waved him off.

"Right, whatever, we're not having this argument again." Reno moved away from the bed and started shuffling through his drawers while Cloud resumed his previous idea of burying his head into his pillow. There was the sound of a spoon tinkering against a glass before said glass was placed on Cloud's beside table. The halfling turned his head slightly to look at what the weasel had placed beside him. It looked like water, but it had a slight purple tinge to it.

"What is it?"

"Water, mixed with a little bit of Remedy in it. It should make you feel better. If not I might have to borrow an esuna off someone." Cloud stared at the drink as if it was about to bite him, before he decided that it wouldn't hurt to try and he reached over for the glass, only to have Reno move it out of his reach.

"Lie on your back, I don't want to clean your sheets for you if you throw up from drinking on your stomach." Rolling his eyes, Cloud rolled onto his back before Reno handed the drink over to him. "Sip it, don't down the whole thing in one go, Remedy's not cheap you know." Cloud stared at the drink in his hands for a moment before he finally took a small sip. The pounding in his head slowly abated to a tolerable hum at the back of his head and he sighed in relief. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah." Cloud grinned and Reno couldn't help but return the grin.

"Get some sleep chickabo. I'll make sure that no scary things attack you in your sleep." Clouds grin morphed into a pout and Reno chuckled. "I'm just playing with ya chickabo… Not about the sleep thing though, so shut those eyes before I decide to see if there's a sleep materia in my stash."

* * *

><p>He wasn't there.<p>

That little halfling wasn't there, not that he was looking for him. If the little shit was sick then that served him right for leaving Nibelheim in the first place. Johnny had to stop himself from scanning over his fellow cadets again just to make sure he hadn't missed the flightless monster. He mentally cursed when he realised that the weasel Cloud usually hung out with wasn't there either. What was the point in coming to classes when the little halfling wasn't even there? Honestly he had no interest in Shinra or becoming a SOLDIER. The only thing he was interested in was Cloud, but when Tifa had mentioned that the little halfling was leaving Shinra to go to the only monster community in the world, he couldn't just let him go. Cloud was his, his little canary that needed to be caged up and taught a lesson for even thinking about trying to leave him. The fact that he was hanging out with that weasel just made everything all the more worse.

"Hey did you guys notice that halfling's not here today." Johnny's thoughts stopped as soon as he heard one of the other cadets mention Cloud.

"Yeah I saw him with the Lieutenant yesterday." Another cadet added. Johnny hadn't bothered to remember their names, they were all rats anyways, not even worth his attention.

"What was he doing with the Lieutenant? Was he finally being kicked out of Shinra." There was a round of laughter, but Johnny frowned. He doubted that the smaller monster would be kicked out that easily. If anything, Cloud was a fighter, though it would be all the more better for him if he had returned to Nibelheim.

"Nah I saw them heading towards one of the clubs outside. Commander Luxiere and Kunsel were with them as well."

"You know he's getting pretty friendly with all the SOLDIERS. Next thing we know he's going to be all over the Generals."

"As if they'd give him as much as a second glance unless he makes a good bed toy." There was another round of laughter. Johnny shut himself off from the conversation at that. So Cloud was starting to make more friends in high up places and that just wouldn't do if he was going to bring him back to Nibelheim. It seems like Cloud needed to be reminded exactly who he belonged to.

* * *

><p>"Zachary Fair would you mind explaining to me why there is a slip on my desk excusing a cadet and his room-mate from attending his classes for the next few days?" Zack's ears fell back and his tail lay flat against the chair that he was sitting on at Sephiroth's expectant look. The aforementioned pink slip was sitting innocently on the desk between Sephrioth and himself.<p>

"Um… I may have dragged a cadet out with me on my birthday and I may have gotten him a little bit drunk and since it was all my fault…" Sephiroth sighed.

"Which explains why you were so late in coming back last night… Now how much alcohol did you slip the poor cadet before he was rushed to the nearest rest room?"

"Five… Maybe six drinks? Little guy could sure hold his alcohol. He wasn't even drunk till the fourth one then as soon as the fifth one hit he was out of it he even laughed at my jokes even though Kunsel and Luxiere said that they were stu…" He trailed off when Sephiroth held up his hand for him to stop.

"Just this once Zack, just because Angeal said that I have to be nice to you on your birthday, I'll let this one slide." Zack pouted.

"Just when I thought that you were actually being amused enough to let me off." Sephiroth raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Don't think I didn't notice General stuffy pants. I've seen you grinning at your newspaper a few times in the morning after some of my antics." So Zack was a bit more observant than he gave him credit for.

"I'll give you points for noticing Zack. Genesis only knows because I've been telling him, but I'll have you know that it only amuses me when it doesn't increase the amount of paper work that I have to deal with. Also, remember that slip of paper that you stole from my office months ago? Don't think I haven't forgotten about that. Now if you don't mind I still have paper work to finish on top of that one little slip that you left for me, unless you want punishment I suggest you leave because I'm sure that Angeal wouldn't mind relinquishing his bathroom cleaning duties to you for a week." Zack was out of the room in a second and a small grin settled on Sephiroth's lips.

Definitely amusing.


	14. Putting the plan into action

_Went on a little bit of a typing spree… But that's a good thing right?_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

The next time Cloud woke up it was because he was being shaken like a rag doll. Thankfully that drink that Reno had given him that morning had gotten rid of the hang over, though he still felt a bit icky, but that wasn't something that could be helped. First of all he had to figure out why his room-mate was trying to get him to wake up at some unholy hour of the night. "What Reno?"

"Oh you're up, good. How are you feeling?" Cloud glared at him.

"Really? I've just managed to get over this hang over and now you're waking me up at…" He glanced over to his clock. "Three in the morning just to ask me how I'm feeling?"

"Are you up for a little outing?" Cloud raised an eyebrow.

"That materia that you gave me isn't mastered. Not to mention I only just figured out how to kill a camera with a small bolt spell."

"That's good enough. Apparently Tseng is out on a mission so we're going to crack his office and take the day off tomorrow."

"Don't we have classes?"

"That stalker of a Lieutenant is good for something at least. He said that we could have up to three days off so we can take you out for that earring tomorrow whenever we wake up." Cloud stared at Reno for what seemed like hours, when it was just a few seconds, before he pulled his blanket over his head and settled back into his bed. "Oh no you don't. We're not getting another chance like this Cloudy, and remember I was the one that nursed you back to health this morning so you owe me, not to mention we're going to be getting you a nice shiny earring or two tomorrow, wouldn't you like that? I nice shiny earring that you can stare at in the mirror all day long and it's all yours. Think of the shiny chickabo. The shiny!" Reno started pawing at Cloud's blankets before the halfling finally pushed the blankets off in a huff.

"Fine, just enough with the shiny. I need to go get dressed." Reno grinned before he started going through Cloud's clothes drawer, pulling out everything black that he could find and throwing them onto the blond cadet's bed while said cadet was reluctantly shuffling out from under his sheets.

"So what's the plan? I get that I have to get into a vent at some point but you never explained exactly how I'm going to be making my way to an office of which I don't even know the location of." Cloud questioned as he started searching through the pile of clothing for something suitable to wear.

"Tseng's office is on the fifty-first floor. Other than the guards that change every three hours the only other security up there are the cameras. The guy that's on tonight is apparently prone to falling asleep at around this time which means now is the perfect time to put our little plan into action."

"Your little plan, not mine." Cloud corrected as he slipped on his clothes and checked himself in the nearby mirror.

"We need to do something about that bright hair of yours." Reno waved a bottle in front of Cloud's face and the cadet frowned.

"I'm not dying my hair for this stupid, suicidal mission of yours." Reno pouted.

"Come on with all those spikes of yours we could probably even stick you in a SOLDIER first outfit and you could parade around as the Lieutenant." Cloud's frown turned into a full out glare. "Or you know, we could let you get caught because of your hair glowing in the vents." Reno quickly changed tactics and Cloud turned his glare onto the bottle that Reno was holding out to him. There were a few moments of contemplative silence before the blond cadet snatched the bottle out of Reno's hands.

"Fine." He stormed into the bathroom and locked the door behind him while Reno grinned at his back.

Inside the bathroom, Cloud giving the bottle in his hands a disgusted look. There was no way he was going to put this stuff in his hair. Tossing the bottle in the rubbish bin, he double checked around the bathroom before turning to stare at himself in the mirror for a moment. After contemplating how to do this for a moment, he released his wings and they slowly lengthened and stretched till they were almost touching the roof and the grey on the ends faded into white. It wasn't ideal but if he was going to change any part of his body he wasn't going to put some weird product on his body.

Plucking a single white feather from his own wings, he quickly retracted them and held the feather to his hair. Closing his eyes in concentration, the feather soon burst into nothing and his hair faded into a nice shade of black. "At least this way I can change my hair back to normal later." Nodding at his own appearance he turned on the shower, stuck his head under the water for a minute. When his hair was sufficiently wet he pulled his head out and watched the water for a few moments before shutting off the shower and making his way out of the bathroom. Reno let off a low whistle.

"Looking good chickabo." Cloud was quick to shrugged off the comment.

"Let's just go and get this over and done with." Grinning, Reno tossed Cloud an ear piece before pulling out a card that he probably swiped and copied off some high up executive.

"To the fifty-first floor!"

* * *

><p>The first thing that was going through Cloud's mind was that he was glad he didn't have his wings out. It was easy enough getting into the vents considering that the guy that was meant to be on duty wasn't even there. It only took him a minute heat up the vent so that it would come off and put it back so that it looked like it was stuck on. Now it was just a matter of getting through these narrow vents without making that much noise and trying to figure out which way it was to Tseng's office. "Hey chickabo, can you hear me?" Reno's voice sounded through his ear piece.<p>

"Loud and clear… Unfortunately." By the indignant sound Reno made on the other side, the weasel apparently had heard that last part despite him mumbling it. "So where am I going? Or am I just going to pick a random office and stick this mic under some random persons desk?"

"Have you gone past an office yet?"

"Going past one right now."

"That's Lazard's office. The one after that is Sephiroth's… Bet you'd love to go in there." Cloud scowled.

"Just hurry up and get on with it. I'm not exactly fond of being in a dirty, cramped up vent."

"Yeah, yeah Cloudy, you can clean and preen yourself after we're done, after Sephiroth's office take the first left vent and Tseng's office should be the first one on the left." Rolling his eyes Cloud continued on through the vents.

"By the way I have a question."

"Yeah chickabo?"

"Exactly how do you know where the vents are and which office is where? Did you steal a map or something from somewhere?"

"I may have taken a trip down to the archives on the forty-fifth floor and taken a few pictures of the fifty-first floor's layout a few days ago."

"And how exactly did you get onto the forty-fifth floor?" He could hear Reno chuckle just as he went past Sephiroth's Office.

"The security down there is surprisingly lax. As long as you give them a reason for going down there and you let them pat you down for a camera they just let you on through."

"So the pictures were from…"

"They forget that PHS' have cameras." Reno's laughter had Cloud shaking his head. Wasn't Shinra meant to be one of the most secure places in the world? Well at least the important stuff was all tightly locked up… That is if you didn't think the layout of the Shinra building wasn't important. He took the turn to Tseng's office and stopped just beside the vent.

"Right, stop talking I need to concentrate on this camera… Then the vent and then I have to get out of here before the guard comes down to check the camera…"

"Good luck chickabo." Cloud rolled his eyes. The things that he did for his friends.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, he crept towards the vent and concentrated on the bolt materia on his armlet. Thankfully the camera that he was aiming for was meant to be just beside the vent and so it wouldn't pick up the small spark that he sent at it.

Once it was off, he heated up the vent till it slid out of its place and he jumped down, landing on the balls of his feet. He double checked that the camera was still off before tugged on his glove to make sure that they were on securely before he pulled out one of the drawers on the desk and stuck the listening device underneath it. Sliding the drawer back into place he released his usual short wings and jumped back up into the vent, using them to gain some height before pulling them back in just as he pulled himself back inside and slid the metal cover back into place, heating it a little to ensure that it was stuck like it should be. He quickly started making his way back just as he heard the doors open and the lights in the office turned on.

"Yo, chickabo, how's it going?" Cloud almost jumped at the sound of Reno's voice in his ear, though he didn't reply just in case the guard heard him. "Well, by your silence you've either got caught or you're scared that someone's going to hear you, let's go for the latter. Anyways, you've got a few minutes before the guard figures out how to turn on the camera, assuming that it's the same guard that's patrolling the floor, so get out of that vent as quick as possible and we'll see if my mic is working when we get back to our dorms." Cloud made a small sound of agreement as he took the turn back to Sephiroth and Lazard's offices.

"Oh, so you are alive. So how's life in a vent chickabo?" The irritated noise that came from Cloud's throat seemed to send Reno into a fit of laughter. "I'm just playing with you chickabo. Well, at least we know you're doing fine." Cloud stopped at the vent that he had started out in and slid it open. As soon as he was out he slid it back into place and secured it back.

"Alright, I'm out, heading back to the dorms now."

"I'll be right here to welcome you back home chickabo." Rolling his eyes, Cloud quickly made his way back to the dorms.


	15. A short outing

_Long story short, I had a laparoscopy then my cousin's wedding up in Auckland._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

The first thought that went through Reno's head was, this was really weird. Today was the second time that he had woken up on his own and Cloud wasn't right in his face. Said cadet was still lying in bed dead asleep with his head buried beneath his pillow and the blankets covering every other part of his body like a cocoon. After a moment of staring he finally decided that it wasn't getting him anywhere so he hauled himself out of bed and made his way into the bathroom.

Just as he reached for his toothbrush he just remembered something. Was that hair dye that he bought permanent or temporary? Because Cloud was going to kill him if his hair was turned black till it grew out; not to mention if his plan didn't work, it was going to look mighty suspicious if Clouds hair turned black the same day that they left a listening device in Tseng's office.

Almost immediately, he dropped his toothbrush and grabbed the bottle at the top of the rubbish bin, only to stop when he realised the weight of it in his hands. Had Cloud even used it? He twisted open the lid and stared at the sight of the seal still fastened to the top of the bottle… So how had Cloud changed his hair? Cautiously, he headed towards the door, to find that Cloud had finally woken up, still sporting his black hair and he was rubbing his eyes in an adorable fashion.

"Hey chickabo?"

"Yah?" Cloud stared back at him sleepily. Reno tossed the unused bottle of hair dye onto Cloud's bed.

"Explain, and don't give me that cute look." Cloud stared at the bottle that was sitting on his bed for a few moments before turning back to Reno.

"It's a bottle of hair dye?" Reno shook his head, reminding himself that Cloud was probably still half asleep and didn't know what he was on about.

"It's the bottle that I gave you yesterday remember? Care to explain how you got your lovely raven locks without using it?" What Reno didn't know was that Cloud's brain was working at a mile a minute trying to come up with a good excuse as to why he didn't use it.

"Um… I'm a crane?" Yup, that was smart. He didn't even know if cranes had that ability. The only ability that he ever witnessed his mother having was the fact that she could fly and she could heal, considering the amount of cuts and scrapes that he used to get as a child.

"You mean it's one of your abilities?" Cloud nodded his head dumbly. "Why didn't you just say that before then chickabo?" Cloud just shrugged as Reno walked over to the bed and picked the bottle back up. "Next time, just tell me instead of throwing away a perfectly good bottle of hair dye." With that he strode back into the bathroom and shut the door behind him and Cloud let out the breath he didn't know that he was even holding. Well, that was close.

In side the bathroom, Reno placed the bottle of hair dye on the table and resumed his previous idea of brushing his teeth. He paused as another thought hit him. Why had Cloud felt the need to wet his hair to make it look like he had dyed it? He pondered over it for a few seconds before he finally decided to just let the detail slide. It wasn't important anyways.

* * *

><p>An hour or so later Cloud found himself wandering the slums with Reno at his side, whistling a tune that he couldn't quite place.<p>

"Hey Reno?" The other cadet turned to Cloud questioningly. "Where are we going?" The Turk wannabe grinned as he slid an earphone from his pocket into his ear.

"We're going to get you a nice little earring, and while we're doing that, we're going to see what kind of a range this baby has." He tapped the earphone that was nestled into his ear.

"How do you even know it's working when there probably isn't anyone in Tseng's office to listen to?" Reno just grinned as they turned a corner into a tattoo and piercing store.

"Hey Reno, long time no see. Finally decided to get something other than that one time?" The guy at the counter questioned. From what Cloud could tell, the guy was some kind of a bird. He had sharp golden eyes and brown wings.

"Nah, I owe my little chickabo here a favour, he likes shiny things so show him something nice, that will at least suit him." The man nodded before he started rummaging through some drawers, pulling out a few trays full of earrings.

"Um… Reno, are you sure…"

"It's fine chickabo. This guy's reasonably priced, not to mention he's a hawk. He's got good eyes, whether it's for fashion or accuracy." The hawk seemed to beam at Reno's compliments as he arranged the trays on a desk for Cloud to look at. At first he couldn't stop just looking at the trays in general. Everything was just… Well, shiny to put it bluntly and none of them even had crystals in them. Everything on the trays were made of either gold or silver. Reno let out a low whistle at the sight.

"Nothing gold chickabo, won't suit you." The hawk made a face.

"Didn't you just say that I had a good eye for fashion?"

"Not saying you don't, just that chickabo's usually a blond." The other monster stared at Cloud for a moment, seemingly trying to imagine him with blond hair before he nodded his head in agreement and put all the gold earrings back. "So, found anything you like?" Cloud made a bit of a face.

"Reno… They're all… Well, you know… How the hell am I supposed to choose like this?" Reno merely shrugged his shoulders before turning his attention to the hawk that was patiently waiting for Cloud to choose something.

"Think you can recommend something, since our resident chickabo can't decide on his own?" The other monster stared at Cloud for a second before he turned his attention back down to the collection that he set down before him.

"What about this one?" He pulled out an earring that had a wolf head as its design. "It'll probably suit your friend here."

"Well, you're the one with the good eyes." Reno turned his attention over to Cloud, who finally seemed to have snapped out of his daze from all the bright things being shown to him. "What do you think chickabo? Think it'll suit you?" Cloud stared at it for a moment before he finally nodded his head.

"Yeah, it looks good."

"Sweet, we'll get that one then."

"Right, one Cloudy Wolf, coming right up." Reno burst out laughing at that, while Cloud just looked confused.

"What's so funny?" By the look on his face, the Hawk also seemed to be wondering why the weasel had just started laughing.

"That design really suits you Cloud. I mean with a name like Cloudy Wolf, it's almost like it was made for you." Cloud scrunched up his face in distaste while the Hawk started chuckling, finally getting what Reno had been laughing about.

"Right Cloud was it?" The Hawk questioned once Reno's laughter had died down and Cloud nodded in affirmation. "Take a seat right here and I'll be right back." He patted on a chair that Cloud hadn't noticed before and the halfling moved to sit down while the Hawk moved into one of the back rooms. He came back a minute later with some kind of white device that had his selected earring attached to it, a spray bottle, another bottle of some kind liquid and a packet of medical swabs. "By the way did you want both ears or just the one?"

"Hey I'm not made out of money here. Just stick one in his left ear and we'll call it a day." The Hawk nodded and turned his attention back to Cloud. The halfling was staring at the piercer wearily.

"Is this going to hurt? I heard that it does." The Hawk chuckled.

"You'll get a prick and it'll sting a little and that's about it." He picked up one of the medical swabs and poured the liquid from one of the bottles onto it. The smell of alcohol filled the air as the Hawk gently started cleaning Cloud's ear.

"If you don't take care of it your ears are gonna get infected so yeah, that will hurt, but other than that it shouldn't hurt." He held up the piercer and the next thing Cloud knew, there was a short stinging pain and his ear felt like it was heating up. He blinked in surprise, it barely even hurt at all. The Hawk chuckled at Cloud's surprised look as he grabbed the spray bottle and sprayed some of it onto Cloud's ear and the heat suddenly disappeared.

"Thought it was going to hurt worse than that didn't you?" Slightly embarrassed, Cloud nodded his head a little. "You get some like that, if they pierce your ear with a blunt piercing it's gonna hurt like hell, that's why we sharpen the ends here see." He reached over the desk to show Cloud the back of one of one of the earrings. It was almost as sharp as a needle. "Anyway." He tossed the earring back on the counter once Cloud had gotten a good look at it. "That's six hundred gil Reno."

"What? That's the same price as a materia!"

"Hey, silver ain't cheap ya know? Tell you what. Since you're always coming over here I'll give it to you for five hundred. Even though I know you've got the cash to pay in full."

"I knew you had a heart somewhere under that mass of feathers." Reno grinned as he tossed the gil onto the table and the Hawk stepped back behind the counter, grabbing the money along the way.

"You're going to be the death of me one day weasel." He said as he reached down and pulled out a small bottle, setting it down in front of Cloud. "Dip a bit of tissue or whatever you have on you in it and wash around your earring every day for a few weeks. Don't take it out for two weeks or you might spring a leak and we don't want that hole to close up unless you wanna come in here again to get it reopened." Palming the bottle, Cloud murmured a thank you as Reno grabbed one of his wrists.

"I'll see you around then." With that he dragged Cloud out of the shop as the owner waved them off.

"He was nice." Cloud commented once Reno had released his arm and they started making their way back to Shinra HQ.

"Of course he's nice. All my friends are nice… Well cept for the ones that say they're my friends but really they're out to kidnap you to see if I'll cough up some cash for them."

"Speaking of cash." Cloud looked thoughtful for a moment. "You've so far bought me two materia and an earring that was pretty much the price of materia and a bottle of hair dye… Where the hell are you getting all that money." Reno grinned.

"Only if you tell me where you got that gold armlet and your materia." Cloud shrugged.

"Father sent them to me. The cure was for my tenth birthday after mother had told him that I kept on injuring myself. Either he realised that I couldn't use it without something to equip it to or he was just waiting for my next birthday but he sent me the armlet the year after. The next five years were spent sending me different pieces of materia." Reno let out a low whistle.

"Your dad rich or something?"

"You could say that… So your cash?"

"I was a really good pick pocket when I was living down in the slums, some of the stuff that I managed to nick could last me a life time, so I've got a bit too much cash stored away now." Cloud raised an eyebrow at him.

"You haven't nicked anything of mine have you?" Reno chuckled at that.

"Course not chickabo. There's nothing in your trunk that I'd want to nick, not to mention you're too adorable to steal from." Cloud sighed in relief.

"Wait a minute, you mean you've picked the lock on my trunk before?"


	16. Tseng's Return

_You know how hard it is getting used to waking up at 6am? Yeah I have a 7:30-4pm job. Great fun trying to my sleeping habits to work with that. Also great fun writing a scene… Then realising that you're missing a scene and having to go back to write it in._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cloud woke up the next day at his usual time feeling quite refreshed despite it being three in the morning. He tiptoed into the bathroom so that he wouldn't wake up his room-mate and grinned at himself in the mirror. The grin quickly turned itself upside down when he noticed the state of his hair. It was still midnight black. He was quick to lock the door in case Reno miraculously decided to wake up before he released white wings and plucked a feather from them. He held it up to his hair and once again it burst into nothing while his hair faded from black to its usual blond.

Once his wings had disappeared he brushed his hair and his teeth before leaving the bathroom and making his way towards the training rooms, making sure to pick up his armlet equipped with all his materia along the way. What he didn't expect was to be dragged up against a wall as soon as he stepped out of the elevator that lead to the training rooms.

"Hey guys look what we caught here."

He vaguely recognised the voice as one of the rats that was in his training class. He couldn't quite put a name to the face that was staring him down though.

"We all thought it was just a rumour that the little halfling takes off to the training rooms at some ungodly hour when you didn't show up for the last two days. Looks like our patience paid off." It looked like there were two or three other rats just behind the one that was holding him against the wall.

"Seriously? You guys have nothing better to do?" Cloud's world started spinning as he was pulled forward and slammed back against the wall again.

"Don't be smart with us halfling. Honestly, just because the Lieutenant shows a little bit of interest in you doesn't meant that you can just do what you want. Slacking off and skipping class with your buddy while the rest of us work our asses off in class." Cloud raised an eyebrow at the rat.

"Really? Is that all this is about?"

"That's not just it you little chicken. What the hell is so special about you anyways? Yeah, we all get that you're a weak little halfling that couldn't throw a punch even if your life depended on it, but that cat in our class is obsessed with you. Don't think that we don't see that he gets this disgusting look in his eyes sometimes when he's staring at you. Not to mention all the attention you're getting from the Lieutenant. I mean, is that all we have to do? Act weak and maybe we'll stand out? Or is it those dippy little wings you have?"

"What you want me to change the way my wings look? Like that would make a difference if I could. Maybe you should just re-evaluate your attitudes?"

His world started spinning again as his back was reacquainted with the wall. Maybe he shouldn't be so mouthy with these rats… Well it was too late now, they were already pissed off at him.

"Hey what's that on his arm?" One of the other rats questioned and the one that was holding him against the wall lifted up his arm to get a closer look at his armlet.

"Where'd you get this from? Don't tell me you've already got into the Lieutenant's pants and he's buying you present's already?"

"The Lieutenant didn't buy it for me. What makes you think I can't afford my own stuff ass wipe?" Cloud wouldn't be surprised if there was a dent in the wall by the end of this with the amount that the rat was slamming him up against it. Maybe he should stop picking up stuff off Reno while he was at it. He probably wouldn't have insulted an assailant that made his back hurt so much previously.

"Don't know why you even bother with this kind of shit little chicken." The rat made to reach for the armlet and Cloud mentally cursed himself for his bad luck. "You're not going to get into SOLDIER anyways so you don't need this. Us on the other hand…"

"You know I'm pretty sure there are rules against beating up fellow cadets… And stealing… And I'm sure there's some stuff in the books about slandering higher ups. I'm sure that Zack would be pissed if he heard some of the crap you've been saying about him." All of Cloud's assailants seemed to freeze at the sound of the new voice and they all turned to see Rufus casually standing there with his hands in his pockets and his Dark Nation standing at his side.

"V… V… Vice President Shinra, sir!" The cadets stuttered as they all moved to salute. The one that was holding Cloud up against the wall seemed to be frozen with his hands still holding Cloud in place though. Rufus raised an eyebrow at this.

"You might want to let him go cadet before I get my pet over here to do something about removing those hands of yours in a much more painful way." At Rufus' words, the rat dropped Cloud, who fell unceremoniously to the ground and the rat fumbled to salute to the spider. "Now, get out of my sight before I decide that you're all better off being sent down to the science department."

With a prompt 'yes sir!' the cadets scurried off before either Cloud or Rufus could blink. Rufus snorted in amusement before he turned his attention to Cloud, who was still on the ground, rubbing his head in an attempt to ease the pain. "You alright cadet?" Cloud looked surprised at the question.

"Um… Yes sir. Sorry you had to see that sir." Cloud said as he struggled to get up. Rufus shrugged and bent down to help Cloud up.

"Seen worse than that in my lifetime. You see some weird stuff when you've been friends with Zack as long as I have."

"I can only imagine sir… By the way, thank you sir." Rufus shrugged again.

"No need cadet. You going to be alright on your own?" Cloud nodded, but winced when the movement made his head start hurting. Frowning, Rufus nudged the cadet back towards the elevator.

"You might want to give up on training right now cadet. Go get that head looked at and try to avoid roaming the hallways on your own for a little while." Reluctantly, Cloud nodded his head in agreement before he re-entered the elevators and hit the button for the sixty seventh floor. Zack found Rufus staring at the elevator door a few moments later.

"What's up Rufus? Did that door do something to offend you and you're trying to think of some way to get back at it?" The Vice President sent Zack a weird look before he stopped staring at the door.

"Talked to your little chocobo just a little while ago." Zack perked up at that. "Did you know his peers are picking on him?"

"I think Luxiere mentioned something a while ago about a cat cornering him in a dark hallway, but that's all I've heard. Why did something happen?"

"A few rats seemed to find it necessary to teach him some kind of a lesson. Might want to keep a better eye on him Zack… Maybe put your plan into action a little bit faster than you expected." Zack seemed to think about it for a moment.

"Can't really… Have to get rid of the weasel first, but I'll try to keep a better eye on Spikey. Have to leave the getting rid of Reno up to that boy toy of yours." Rufus glared at Zack. He was still a little irritated at the whole Reno, Tseng thing. Maybe when he got back to his office he'd send some more hate mail to Tseng.

* * *

><p>When Tseng entered his office, the first thing he did was hit the playback button on his answer phone. There was the usual order from the President to send him a mission report as soon as possible. A few other messages from his Turks to say that their missions were done and they'd send their reports to his secretary, along with one other message from Rufus, who was acting very childlike while he was stating how much he hated Tseng and wished that he had gone and crashed his helicopter during his last mission.<p>

"… And by the way you still haven't replaced that vase in your office."

Tseng's fingers tightening around the arms rests on his seat as he was reminded about why Rufus was still angry at him. You would think that he was the one that should be angry at Rufus, but no. While Tseng has let the incident with Rufus' questionable information resources slide, the President's son was still angry at him about the thing with Reno. He had to admit he had been showing a little bit too much interest in the red headed weasel but that was purely because he had the potential to become an excellent Turk.

There was a knock at the door and Tseng sighed. Mentally locking away that thought to be processed at a later date as he sat in his plush chair trying to look as if Rufus' reminder wasn't playing on his nerves.

"Come in." His secretary entered holding a small folder in his hands. "Anything of importance happen while I was away?"

"I have all the reports back from the rest of your Turks here sir."

"Any casualties?"

"None so far. All Turks have reported back in a timely manner and they have all returned to Shinra. There was a slight miscalculation with Nunchaku and Knife's mission, so their mission has been prolonged." Tseng raised an eyebrow at that.

"Miscalculation?" Despite being somewhat reckless at times, his Turks weren't ones that made mistakes very often. Especially when their mission involved humans. "Observe Wutai to ensure that there wasn't a chance for another uprising and return as soon as possible. Theirs is a country of humans, why, pray tell me, would there be a miscalculation in that?"

"It turns out that the royal family over there is a family of monkeys. Godo has remained obedient as far as this report says, but it seems as if his daughter's disappeared and they're both looking into it. They've grilled Godo about it and it seems to just be an act of rebelliousness at her young age." Tseng's frown deepened.

"It better be. Contact me immediately if anything else arises from that situation."

"Yes sir." Tseng lent back on his chair.

"Did anything else happen while I was gone?"

"I got a message from one of the SOLDIER's on duty a few days ago. The day that you were gone, it seems that the camera shut down for a few moments before we got it back online again. We thoroughly checked through your office and nothing seemed out of the ordinary." Tseng was quick to wave it off.

"I doubt anyone could do anything in that minute it takes to get in here and fix the camera. If that's all then you're dismissed." With a quick bow, his secretary left. Once the door had closed behind him, Tseng started opening all his drawers in a quick check to make sure nothing had been taken or moved. Everything looked fine and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He almost felt disappointed when he found nothing. He would have thought that the weasel would have made a move, but maybe it was just a camera malfunction.

Shutting the last drawer, he sighed and settled back down in his chair.

Maybe he should have a talk with Rufus.

Over in the mess hall, a weasel was chuckling to himself while the halfling that was sitting with him just looked confused.


	17. When all goes to hell

_Excuses are at the bottom of the page. I apologise for this chapter being so short._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Rufus knew that this was going to come up at some point. So when Cissnei came up with a message from Tseng saying that they needed to talk, now, he merely waved her away and said that he'd come down later, when he had the time. Once she was gone he pulled up Tseng's timetable on his computer for a quick check before he went back to doing his work. An hour or so later Rude came knocking at his door with a note telling him that Tseng wanted to talk. He did the same thing that he had done with Cissnei and just waved him away.

An hour later there was another knock at his door and this time Tseng himself walked in. Not once did Rufus look up from his work as they both sat in a somewhat awkward silence for a few moments before Tseng finally decided to speak up. "Explain to me why you're so insistent on acting like a child and ignoring me."

"I'm not the one using my subordinates to summon my lover. In case you didn't know, I am the Vice President of the world's only electric company and Midgar's only military force. I don't have the time to cater to your every whim." Tseng could feel his eye twitch in irritation.

"You're aware of the fact that this won't be settled unless you talk to me. Or would you rather we keep on fighting over this? Look at me when I'm talking to you Rufus." Tseng was almost taken aback from the glare on his lovers face when he reached over Rufus' desk and yanked the Vice President's chin up. He almost immediately released him as if he had just been burnt.

"You know what the problem is. You're the one that's insistent that this weasel proves something to you when you're just going to make him a Turk anyway. You know he has the skills and the drive. Why do you need him to chase after you? Or do you have some kind of fetish for ferrets chasing after you?"

"They're entirely different animals Rufus…"

"You know what I meant."

"Look." Tseng breathed out exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know." There was an awkward silence between the two for a few seconds.

"What did you just say?" Rufus' voice was almost too calm.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I just…"

"Just get out Tseng." The Turk stared back at Rufus as if he couldn't believe what the Vice President was saying to him. "Get the fuck out!"

"I'm not leaving you like this Rufus." Tseng tried to reason.

"Fuck you if you're not going to get the fuck out of my office I'm calling security!" Rufus hit the speed dial on his phone and a there was the sound of ringing coming from Tseng's direction. The fox reached into his pocket and pulled out his PHS, dangling it in Rufus' face almost tauntingly. He could almost hear the last piece of Rufus' control snap as the spider slammed down his phone back down on the receiver and swept right past the Turk not even sparing him a glance.

"Where do you think you're going Rufus?" Tseng questioned as he made to follow him.

"Away from you, just stay the fuck away from me!" Rufus wrenched his door open and slammed it behind him, leaving Tseng to wonder what the hell just happened.

* * *

><p><em>Ok so I actually got my new laptop a while ago but then when I got to typing I went… Wait… Tseng and Rufus aren't meant to break up! Then I had a chat with my beta and everything worked itself out… Kinda. I do have a better excuse it's a lot more depressing than that but I'm sure none of you want to know.<em>

_Anyways I have a question because now I'm in a total slump because I have a gazillion scenes I could possibly write up so the question is, which characters do you want to see more of? I promise to have a chapter out by Friday. (And by Friday I mean NZ Friday because I think the US is like a day behind?)_

_Also thanks for all the supportive PM's and reviews :)_


	18. Again and again

_-Hides- I tried… (In response to dawn chase, the prologue was shorter! Pleasedon'tkillme)_

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.<strong>

Cloud didn't know how he always found himself in these kinds of situations. Correction, he did know how, he just didn't know how it always happened to him. So here he was again in the hallway for what was it now? The third time? At 3am. The only difference was that this time, he wasn't being held up against the wall.

"Who said that you could touch him? He belongs to me!" Yeah, not to mention he had one weird... He wasn't sure if he should call him a saviour or not. All he knew was that morning he was stupid enough to get up out of bed for training and the next thing he knew he had been backed up against the wall by that rat of whom he still didn't remember the name of and then Johnny came out of nowhere and now they were having what looked like a yelling match... Over him... Yeah it was weird.

The rat scoffed. "Yours? I don't see your name on him. Besides, why would you want a disgusting creature like that? Or is it just that trash attracts more trash?"

Cloud only had one thought going through his head at this point. He hoped that someone would walk past soon.

He felt himself being grabbed and found himself behind Johnny. "He belongs to me."

The rat seemed to laugh at that and the next thing Cloud knew, Johnny had disappeared and there was a soft thudding sound as someone hit the ground. Cloud guessed that was the cat being pushed to the ground while he was once against up against the wall, being held up by a pair of rats.

The one that had been taunting Johnny before had flicked out a knife. "If you want such a disgusting thing…" He started approaching Cloud with the knife. "Then I might as well make him just as disgusting on the outside."

"The fuck! Are you insane? Let me go!" Cloud yelled at as he finally realised where this situation was going and panic started to settle in while he struggled against the two rats that were holding him up.

"Stop struggling you little shit." Cloud could feel their hold on him tighten.

He didn't know how it happened or if it was just an automatic reaction from the adrenaline rush, but the next thing he knew, one of the materia from his gold armlet started heating up and Cloud could hear Phoenix's cry echo in his head. As the rat got closer, the cry got louder until the rat stopped and looked around.

"The fuck was that?"

It took Cloud a moment to realise that the cry was no longer ringing in his head and that everyone else could hear it.

"The fuck IS that?" The two rats holding up Cloud unceremoniously dropped him to the ground and stared down the hallway in fear.

"Fuck! Isn't that a summon?"

"It's Phoenix!"

The rat that had been holding up the knife dropped it to the ground. "Who the hell summoned it?"

"It has to be this Halfling. He's the only one that…"

"Don't say stupid things! This little shit couldn't summon a fly even if he had the magic power for it!"

"What do you all think you're doing?"

They all stopped and turned in the direction of the new voice to see both Sephiroth and Genesis standing near the elevators. Genesis had a twisted, disgusted look on his face while Sephiroth had his gaze trained on the summon that was coming towards them.

"Looks like we have a little clean-up to do Seph." Genesis said. Sephiroth just sighed as he dumped the papers he had been holding in Genesis' arms.

"Hold this for a second."

Before either of them knew it, Masamune was out and the summon was disappearing in a mako coloured mist. As calmly as anything, Sephiroth casually slid his sword back into its sheathe before he turned his attention back to the cadets with a somewhat annoyed expression on his face.

It was an odd sight he had to admit. Two rats were sitting on top of Johnny, while one of them was still holding the cats' arms behind his back. Cloud was on the floor, having been dropped on the ground by the rats that had previously been holding him captive. The two rats in question were frozen to the spot while the one that had been about to attack Cloud with the knife was in a similar state with the knife at his feet.

"Would you cadets like to explain what this is? Or am I going to have to play a guessing game? Because from what I can see; this looks like an intervention gone wrong." There was a dead silence before Sephiroth sighed again. "Get out of my sight, the lot of you, I'll deal with you later."

The rats quickly scurried away while Johnny growled and followed after them, giving Cloud a look that the Halfling couldn't quite place. It looked like something between being a protective and possessive look.

Just as Cloud was about to follow Sephiroth stopped him. "You come with me cadet. I believe we have something we need to discuss." Cloud practically froze at that. He hoped that he wasn't about to be kicked out of the program. He had just been defending himself, though he may have overreacted a little bit with the whole summoning. He could have just set fire on all of them but his brain hadn't been working very well.

Sephiroth casually walked over to Genesis and took his papers back off the red haired First before he and Genesis started making their way towards the elevators. He stopped when he realised Cloud wasn't following them. "Well? Are you coming?"

Cloud was quick to scurry into the elevator with them and he stood behind the two while Sephiroth punched in the floor number. Genesis was still giving him a disgusted look.

"You know I never thought I'd see the day where a bunch of cadets would lower themselves to fight over such a transparent charlatan like you."

Cloud blinked… A transparent what? Did he just call him a fraud?

"Genesis!" Sephiroth was quick to scold him while Genesis looked indignant.

"What? He is. He's not even a proper monster… He's…"

"That's enough Genesis." The elevator stopped and the three of them stepped out. "Go to your office Genesis, I'll deal with this one on my own." With that, Genesis headed in straight down the hallway to his own office while Sephiroth lead Cloud in a different direction.

Cloud looked around a little, recognising the floor as the one that he and Reno had broken into a few weeks ago. When they got to Sephiroth's office, the general pushed open the door and settled down on his plush chair, placing his papers down on his desk before gesturing for Cloud to take the seat opposite him. Cautiously, Cloud sat himself down on the chair. There was a slight awkward silence before Sephiroth sighed, mentally reminding himself to see what the hell that was in the elevator with Genesis later. He had to see to this Halfling first.

"Name cadet."

"Cloud Strife, sir."

Sephiroth was quick to bring up the Halfling's profile on his computer. "So, you want to explain what happened down there?"

"I don't know sir! One minute I was going to training and the next that rat had a knife and Johnny was on the floor and I was panicking and then Phoenix…" Cloud knew he was tripping over his own words but the general was really intimidating in person and he couldn't stop himself.

Sephiroth held up his hand and Cloud almost immediately shut his mouth.

"From what I gathered, those rats cornered you, that cat tried to protect you and failed miserably and you ended up summoning Phoenix?" Slowly, Cloud nodded his head.

"Yes sir."

"Your armlet if you will please?" Sephiroth held out his hand and Cloud winced, hoping that he wasn't going to get his materia confiscated. He gently undid the clip on his armlet and cautiously placed it in the outstretched hand and watched as Sephiroth examined the materia. "You take good care of it."

"They were all presents from my father sir." Cloud explained.

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. The cadet didn't have his father listed, which usually meant that either he didn't want anyone to know who his father was, or his father was dead. Going by the looks of things, he went for what seemed like the most logical answer.

"Don't people usually keep things like this as mementos instead of using them?"

Cloud looked startled. "Excuse me sir?"

"Your father. He isn't listed here."

"S… Sorry sir." Cloud spluttered. "But my father is very much alive."

Sephiroth looked a little bit surprised at that. "Oh… I apologise for the misunderstanding." He put the armlet on his desk and pushed it towards Cloud. "I'll let you off with a warning cadet. Next time you get in that kind of situation, casting fire would have been the better option, or even a bolt."

Cloud looked surprised. "Sir?"

"I can't kick you out on the grounds of self-defence. Not to mention I don't think I would want to after seeing what you can do. Those rats will be dealt with accordingly after I speak with your instructor. I'm not sure what will happen with the cat though. My suggestion is that you avoid being alone in hallways till this situation in sorted." There was another somewhat awkward silence.

"Um… Is that all sir?"

Sephiroth looked thoughtful for a moment. "I guess so. Dismissed." With those words, Cloud was out the door.

Sephiroth stared in the direction that the cadet had gone for a few moments before a single word left his lips with a small grin.

"Cute."


	19. New Rules

_First I'd like to say HOLY COW I mean I saw that I had people adding me to their watch list but I didn't think I'd get that many reviews in one chapter. (Also, silly reviewers asking me questions you know I won't answer.)_

_Secondly, before I forget I'd like to say thank you to my beta for helping me with finding insults for that last chapter._

_Third of all, during the writing of this chapter I learnt that baby cousins do not let you write when they want your attention._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Sephiroth never really talked to Luxiere much. What little information he had on the rat was that he was one of his Seconds, who was friends with Zack and his other friend Kunsel.

His eyes scanned over the mess hall and quickly spotted the rat with Zack and Kunsel. Not like they were very hard to miss with Zack laughing the place down. He slowly made his way towards him, ignoring the fact that a lot of the other SOLDIERs were watching him. Zack was the first to notice him as the other two had their backs turned to him. Zack perked up and smiled at him while the other two looked momentarily confused before Sephiroth spoke up when he was directly behind them.

"Commander Luxiere." Both Luxiere and Kunsel practically fell out of their seats before they snapped to attention while Zack snorted in amusement. Sephiroth never figured out what was so funny about it when his SOLDIERs did that.

"General sir." Both Seconds' saluted to him while Zack stayed in his seat still looking amused.

"At ease SOLDIERs." They both almost immediately put their hands down. "Commander Luxiere, I need to speak to you about a few of your cadets." With a nod Luxiere moved to follow after him while Sephiroth nodded at his lover and Kunsel in acknowledgement before leading Luxiere towards his office. He heard Zack call out to be nice to his friend and mentally shook his head. The things Zack said to him sometimes.

Once they had gotten to Sephiroth's office, he sat in his seat and gestured towards the seat opposite him for Luxiere to sit on before he pulled three folders and a golden armlet out of his drawer and threw them onto his desk. Luxiere stared at them for a moment before slowly picking up the armlet and opening the folders.

"Belias Manx, Johnny Korat and Cloud Strife? I could easily guess what this thing with Korat and Strife is, but Manx? As far as I know he's had nothing to do with the two."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. "Korat and Strife have had issues before? Why has there never been a report handed to me?"

"It was outside of classes and nothing really serious happened. I expected Strife to file in a report. Even though I told him to, I guess he doesn't have that type of character."

Sephiroth seemed to think over this information for a moment. Yes that Halfling looked weak but by his display with Phoenix, he didn't look like one to go down without a fight either. Deciding to get down to the point, he handed a slip to Luxiere.

"A dismissal report from the army?" Luxiere questioned.

"First of all, Strife left that armlet in my office. I figured you being his commander, it would be better for you to hand it back to him. Secondly, Manx along with a few other of his… Friends, should I say, had Strife trapped near the training facilities. I don't care about the others but it looked like he was the instigator. Korat tried to protect Strife, but gave Strife this look that I didn't really care for. They were only lucky that Genesis and I heard them or else that would have been a very messy clean up. If this was any other case I would have requested for Strife's dismissal, seeing as how he was the reason for the fight in the first place, but these days it's hard to find anyone with that much magic power. He would be a good asset despite his lack of physical strength, but that is something that can be fixed."

Luxiere blinked. "Magic power?"

Sephiroth looked surprised. "You never noticed? I thought that cadets were at least trained in materia use."

"They are, near the end of the programme."

"We might need to review the programme then. It would explain our lack of magic users if they're dropping out because their physical strength is lacking, but back to the issue at hand. Whether you use that form or not, I will leave that decision up to you. Just a reminder though, your cadets are a reflection of your teaching skills and your teaching skills are a reflection of my judgement skills. Whether you are friends with Zack or not, it is not in your best interest if you make me regret placing you in charge of these cadets. Do I make myself clear commander?"

Luxiere paled. "Understood sir!"

* * *

><p>When their entire class got called into the training halls and were made to sit on the floor like pre-schoolers, Reno immediately knew that something that had to do with Cloud had happened. Especially when General Sephiroth had his eyes trained on Johnny and one of the rats in their class and Commander Luxiere was staring at Cloud while said person was turning a nice pale colour.<p>

"It has come to my attention that there are a few little skirmishes that are recently getting out of hand."

Reno turned his look on Cloud as Luxiere began his talk.

"As you know it is against our rules to attack your fellow cadets unless you're training. If you were in SOLDIER you would've been kicked out of Shinra for good for insubordination already, after all, what good is an army when not only do you have to look out for enemies, but your own side is out for your blood. Originally I was just going to get rid of the trouble makers, but seeing as how you all seem to be acting as sheep and following whoever seems to have the best ideas despite knowing they're wrong, you will be punished as a whole. Maybe then you'll get it in your heads that this is the army. We don't have the time to put up with the childish crap that you pull."

Reno took a quick glance around and noticed that Cloud seemed to be trying to sink into the floor while a few of the rats around them were glaring at the one that the General had been looking at.

"So since you are all so insistent on acting like children, we've decided to punish you like children." There were a few sounds of protest, which annoyingly got louder and louder.

"SILENCE!" The room immediately quietened down at Sephiroth's order. "Commander Luxiere has kindly offered this option instead of my previous suggestion, so unless you want to be sent back to your families with your memories wiped, you will listen and accept your punishment."

After a few moments of awkward silence, Luxiere cleared his throat and continued to speak. "Previously you were free to use the training facilities. This privilege has been revoked and unless you have a SOLDIER with you at the time or unless we are required to use them during our training time."

Well that would kill Cloud's morning training.

"Also, you are now on a strict lights out time. Lights out are at their usual nine o'clock. None of you are permitted to leave your rooms until five. If you are caught outside your rooms at these times without permission from someone of higher rank, be prepared for the worst case scenario, and we will be monitoring the halls to make sure that none of you leave."

Reno mentally cursed at that. It was going to be hard to sneak out anywhere now.

"Alright, the lot of you, dismissed."

There was a whole lot of grumbling as the rest of the cadets cleared the training room. Reno on the other hand had pinned Cloud down with a glare.

"Explain, now and don't tell me that it has nothing to do with you."

"Why do you always have to cut off all my escape lines?"

"Because we both know that they're not going to work on me."

Honestly, the things Cloud got into when Reno wasn't watching him.

"I had a little run in with this rat a couple of times. That's all… The vice president may have helped me the first time and then General Sephiroth may have helped me the second time…"

"That rat that everyone was staring at?"

"The one in the same…"

Reno sighed. "Honestly chickabo I don't know how you get yourself into these kinds of situations."

Cloud looked surprised. "You're not angry?"

Reno grinned and ruffled his hair a little. "Of course I am, but you're not hurt…" Reno narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you?" Cloud was quick to shake his head. "Good. At least something good came out of this."

Cloud blinked in confusion. "Something good?"

Reno grinned again. "Now you can't leave my sight."


	20. One surprise after another

_Ok I know this is really short, but this chapter was a LOT longer in my head and for some reason it just didn't want to reach that 2 page mark._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Hey General Sephy."

Said general glared at Zack as the wolf burst through his office. "That's General Sephiroth in public Lieutenant Fair. What do you want?"

"Luxiere looked scared out of his pants last time I saw him and I thought that I said to be nice." Zack said as he plopped himself down on Sephiroth's desk. Not really caring that he was probably sitting on some important documents. "What did you say to him? Because he's not telling me anything."

"I merely told him that he should put his cadets in line… And I may have mentioned that it wasn't in his best interest to let the incident slide."

Zack looked interested at that. "Incident?"

"A few cadets had a scuffle in the hallway, so I made Luxiere deal with it in a way I saw fit."

"… Which was?"

"Either kick them out or think of a punishment that I can agree with."

"And that was…?"

"We decided that if they were going to act like children, then they were going to be treated like children, so we set them bed times and took away their training room privileges."

Zack was so shocked that he stood up from the desk, sending a few of Sephiroth's papers flying at same time. "You did WHAT?"

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at that. He didn't think Zack would be so upset about it. "Do I really need to repeat myself?"

Zack was quick to shake his head while settling himself back down in Sephiroth's guest chair this time.

"No wonder he wasn't in the training rooms yesterday morning… Maybe I should push my plans forward before he starts falling behind… That reminds me I should tell Rufus… Not that I've seen him lately…"

That peaked Sephiroth's curiosity. Was that what Zack and Rufus were up to in the mornings? Watching someone in the training rooms? He wondered if it was that cute chocobo like Halfling that he was watching. Before he could question his lover, Zack had already whipped out his phone and was dialling Rufus' number.

"Hey Mr Vice president…" Zack almost immediately started frowning. "What's wrong…? I was going to tell you about the training rooms but that sounded a bit more important. Give me a minute I'll be there in a second." He hung up the phone and turned his attention back to Sephiroth, who was gazing back at him curiously. "I'll talk to you later Seph. Got a friend to comfort and maybe a Turk to murder."

Sephiroth merely waved him away and started reading his paper work, vaguely wondering what Tseng had done to upset the Vice President and feeling sorry for him at the same time. It wasn't pretty being on the receiving end of Zack's wrath when you had just upset his best friend.

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><p>When Zack entered Tseng's office, the Turk almost immediately knew that this probably wasn't going to be a pleasant meeting. "Hey you Mr shape shifting leader of the Turks. Person that's dating my best friend."<p>

Yes, it definitely was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

"Would you mind explaining to me why my best friend has holed himself up in his apartment and refuses to leave while he's pretty much eating takeaways that are being sent up to his room with his overgrown cat standing guard at the door because he doesn't want to see a certain someone? Because I'm sure that a certain someone promised me that he would not hurt my best friend when he started dating him because he didn't want a buster sword through his stomach."

Tseng figured he better just get this over with and attempt to come out of it with as little injuries as possible.

"We had an argument."

"I know. Explain, now."

"He asked me a question and I was incapable of answering it."

"And this question doesn't happen to have something to do with a certain cadet does it?"

"It may or may not have."

"Look." It seemed that Zack was sick of his roundabout answers. "Let me cut to the chase Tseng. Rufus is unhappy and as you already know, when Rufus isn't happy, that means I'm not happy. Now, either you do something to fix this or else…"

There was a loud crash and Tseng blinked at his desk which had been sliced cleanly down the middle.

He didn't even see Zack draw his buster sword.

"You'll end up just like that desk of yours." With that, Zack walked out of Tseng's office and slammed the door behind him.

There was the sound of something hitting the bottom of Tseng's desk and the fox almost jumped in surprise. Slowly, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and reached in pulling out a small black device.

Honestly, he didn't know if these random surprises were making things better or worse.


	21. Moving Along

_I'm sorry, but courtesy of one of my Beta's friends, my wrist was rendered unusable for a long time. This chapter was written very slowly due to pain and edited on a very shaky plane ride._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Reno was mentally cursing saying those words to Cloud after that assembly with the General and Luxiere. It seemed that he had jinxed himself because now, he was walking towards Tseng's office being led by some blond female Turk while Cloud was left walking back to their dorms on his own.

The Turk lead him down a familiar corridor until they were standing before what he recognised as Tseng's office. The Turk opened the door and before Reno knew what was going on, he was shoved into the room and the door slammed shut behind him.

Looking around the room, there was a filing cabinet in the far corner, a small table in the other corner that looked somewhat out of place and right in the middle was Tseng, sitting behind a large desk, staring back at him with a somewhat calculating look on his face.

"Take a seat." The fox gestured over to the chair that was situated on the other side of the desk. Cautiously, Reno took the seat, taking notice of a desk that had been split in half that was sitting behind Tseng's chair. There was a sound of something hitting the desk near Reno and he looked down to see his mic sitting before him.

"I believe that this belongs to you." Tseng's voice brought Reno away from the small black object.

"I don't know what you're talking about sir." He answered automatically. He had already had this conversation planned out in his head a long time ago.

"I commend you for your efforts. It took me a while to find the melt markings on my vents and you did a good job of wiping off your fingerprints off the mic. None on the vents either, so I'm guessing whoever you got to crawl through the vents for you was given some good instructions."

Reno could feel his heart speeding up and practically fought to keep his anxiety off his face as he replied as fluidly as he could. "I still don't know what you're talking about sir."

"Your acting skills could probably even give Knife a run for her money, but you still have some holes in your technique." Tseng pulled out a file from his desk and threw it onto the table.

"Approximately three weeks ago, the day that I went on a three day mission, you were seen going into an electronics store in the slums. That night the camera was shut down for approximately ten minutes. By my observations the only one that could have possibly fit through the vents is that crane that you seem quite attached to, but the most damning evidence is this." Tseng threw a small plastic bag onto the desk. Reno could see a small silver battery inside and silently cursed himself.

"You need to learn to wear gloves when putting batteries into things."

Reno sighed and lent back against his seat. "I knew I forgot something."

"You just need to polish up on your technique." Tseng pushed a button on his phone and a bald Turk walked into the room. "Meet Rude. He's going to be your partner. Rude, this is Reno, he shouldn't be needing too much training. I expect you both to get along because you're going to be room-mates from now on."

As happy as Reno was, he was cursing in his head at the same time.

Now who was going to look after Cloud?

* * *

><p>Cloud jumped and hastily shoved something under his pillow as Reno stepped into their room and practically bound over to the weasel as Reno shut the door behind him, thanking whoever was out there that his room-mate hadn't noticed.<p>

"How was it Reno? Did they find the mic?"

"Yeah."

Cloud almost immediately frowned at the sound of Reno's voice. He didn't sound very excited, did he not get into the Turks? "What happened?"

"I got in."

Maybe he was just in shock and it just hadn't sunk in. "Shouldn't you be grinning like an idiot then? You've been aiming for this haven't you?"

Reno nodded and hesitated a little before he spoke. "I have to move out of here as soon as I can…"

Ah, so that's what was making Reno so uncharacteristically unhappy. Then again with all the weird stuff that was happening around him, even Cloud was a bit edgy about being alone. Despite his own fear, Cloud grinned.

"Don't worry about me Reno. I can take care of myself. Besides, I'm going to be in soldier. You don't need to watch my back at every turn."

Reno looked somewhat surprised and Cloud thought he saw a small bit of hurt in Reno's eyes before it disappeared in a split second. Then a grin plastered itself on Reno's face. "You're right chickabo. You have that shitload of materia on you right?"

Cloud fought the urge to wince as he remembered leaving his gold bangle in the generals office in his rush to get out of there.

He really needed to get that back somehow.

"Yeah, like I said, I'll be perfectly fine on my own. If worse comes to worst they'll have Bahamut nipping at their heels."

Reno laughed a little, shaking his head in disbelief. "Only you and your mad amount of MP."

Cloud pouted. "Do you have a problem with my mad amount of MP?"

Laughing, Reno shook his head before grabbing the Halfling into a hug. "You'll take care of yourself right chickabo? I'll come and see you whenever I can."

Cloud nodded against Reno's chest. Now also wouldn't be the best time to tell Reno about that letter Zack had given him, which had been hastily shoved under his pillow when Reno had arrived.

* * *

><p>Once Reno had finished packing his things and was dragging them to wherever his new room was, Cloud cautiously pulled the letter out from under his pillow. In a neat scrawl that was signed by the General, it stated that he had been recommended for the mentor programme and should he accept, he would be moved and placed under the care of Zack Fair. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that Zack had been the one to suggest him and get the general's permission.<p>

He was just about to pen a reply on the answer form when there was a knock at his door. He jumped a little, hastily shoving the letter back in its hiding place under his pillow and rushed over to the door. He was surprised to see commander Luxiere standing there.

"Sir?"

"Can I come in cadet Strife?"

Cloud hesitantly nodded his head while taking a step back to allow his commander to step in and closed the door behind him.

"Was that Reno I saw dragging his bags upstairs?"

"Yes sir, he's just been accepted into the Turks sir."

Luxiere blinked in surprise. He hadn't known that Tseng had his eyes on Reno. Then again he never really interacted with the head Turk. Zack knew more about him, with him being best friends with Rufus and all.

"I guess I should be getting a folder of some sort from Tseng saying that Reno's been pulled out of the cadet programme… Anyway, that's not what I'm here for cadet." Luxiere reached into one of his pockets and placed something in Cloud's hands. The cadet looked surprised to see his gold bangle sitting there. "The general said that you left this in his office a while ago."

"Yes." Cloud was still staring at the piece of metal in awe. "I rushed out of there without even picking it up and I was just thinking about how I was going to get it back because of…" He trailed off when he remembered who he was speaking with.

"I apologise for not bringing it back to you sooner. It did slip my mind a few times and when I did remember, I wasn't in a position to return it to you. I hope nothing went wrong while you were without it." Cloud stared at his bangle for a few more moments before he turned his attention back to his commander.

"Nothing happened." He confirmed. "Thank you for returning it commander." With a nod of his head Luxiere left the room, closing the door behind him with a small click.

Cloud sighed before he turned back to his bed and pulled out his letter from under his pillow for the second time. His reply now more firmly set in his mind.


	22. Persistent Zack at his best

_So I was casually typing this while watching TV last night and before I realised it I had a chapter haha._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Sephiroth stared at the piece of paper on his desk for a long time. Not sure what to make of it for a few moments before he sighed and penned out something on another piece of paper and pressed one of the buttons on his phone to get his secretary. "What can I do for you sir?"

"Call in Lieutenant Fair and send him straight to my office."

"Yes sir. I'll make sure he's there as soon as possible."

Zack burst his way into his office and sat himself in Sephiroth's guest chair ten minutes later. "What can I do you for General stud muffin? Is the world ending? Because usually I have to fight my way into your office just so I can talk to you."

Sephiroth twitched a little at the nickname, but didn't bother to correct the wolf. Instead, he threw a piece of paper in Zack's direction and the Lieutenant glanced at it for a moment before turning a questioning gaze back to Sephiroth.

"Explain exactly what this is Lieutenant."

"It's a recommendation for a cadet to enter the mentor programme?"

Even though he couldn't see it Sephiroth could hear Zack's tail hitting the back of his chair in excitement. "I do not remember writing this Lieutenant."

The thumping of Zack's tail sound slowed down a few beats. "Maybe your memory's not like it used to be with your age and all?"

Somehow Sephiroth knew that he should feel insulted by Zack's words, but he knew the wolf a little bit too well for that. "I am only twenty three years of age Zachary, that makes me only seven years older than you."

"But an extra five years more than me of being in Shinra."

"Six." Sephiroth corrected. "I was in Shinra for a year before I became a General."

"The General." Zack corrected and Sephiroth uncharacteristically rolled his eyes.

"Either way Zachery, you are not going to sway me off this topic."

Zack merely pouted.

"Now, is there a reason why you want this cadet under your care? Or shall I accept his refusal to be mentored?"

Zack looked surprised at this. "He… Declined?"

Sephiroth pulled out another piece of paper that had Clouds refusal printed out in neat handwriting. "I believe it says something along the lines of, 'although I am honoured that Lieutenant Fair has recommended me as a part of the mentoring programme, I do not believe that I am a suitable candidate, as there are others that would benefit from it more than I. Signed Cloud Strife.' He might have seen through your little ploy, whatever it is Zachary."

"Stop calling me Zachary." An expression that looked like it was somewhere between annoyed and thoughtful made its way onto Zack's face. "Now how am I going to make him change his mind?"

"This Cloud Strife." Sephiroth's voice seem to bring Zack out of his thoughts. "He's that Halfling that is under your friends command am I right?" Zack nodded his head. "Blond hair, bright blue eyes and enough MP to summon Phoenix."

Zack blinked in surprise. "I thought only Rufus and I knew about that, how did you find out?"

"You remember that scuffle outside the training rooms that Genesis and I took care of a while ago?" Zack nodded his head again. "That cadet that you're so intent on training seemed to be the catalyst. He had a cat and a rat after him and as soon as the rat brought out a knife, he summoned Phoenix."

"Wow talk about overkill…"

"I believe anyone with that kind of skill would do the same if someone was holding a knife to them."

"Hey if it was me I would have just set fire to all of their asses and just sit there and laugh while they all attempted to put it out."

Sephiroth decided not to comment on that. "You know if it was any other cadet, I would have just told you to leave him to his own training and carry on with more important things… Like your paper work." Zack made a face at that. "But in this case I actually think that training him would be beneficial to this army in the long run." Sephiroth reached over to his stack of papers and pulled off the one on top.

Zack's entire face seemed to light up at this. "Is that… What I think it is?"

"Don't get your hopes up too high puppy. If he says no again I will do no more to help you with whatever this thing is that you're planning. It was fun in the beginning but as of now my curiosity is only just outweighing the possible conflicts that could arise from this."

"Ha see I told you that you were having fun."

Sephiroth smirked a little while Zack reached over the desk to try to snatch the paper out of Sephiroth's hands, but the general quickly moved the paper out of his reach and the wolf pouted.

"I thought that you were going to give it to me."

"Not yet puppy. There's just one little thing that I have to warn you about."

Zack was already crawling over the desk to try to reach the paper and Sephiroth stood up, holding the paper up above his head so that Zack couldn't reach.

"It's about Genesis."

Zack paused on his mission to grab the paper. "What's up with Gen?"

"If this cadet accepts…"

"What do you mean if?"

Sephiroth rolled his eyes. "If I manage to convince this cadet, or when you manage to con him into joining the mentoring programme, you need to know that Genesis has something against Halflings."

Zack stared at Sephiroth in surprise. "What? Gen doesn't like Halflings? This is the first time I've heard of this."

"Genesis wasn't exactly polite to that cadet when we met him in the hallway. He was so out of character that I had to ask Angeal about it. Apparently Hollander had drilled it into Genesis' head that Halflings are abominations, so neither of us know what his reaction will be if he finds out that that cadet might be staying in the same apartment as you."

"Will be." Zack corrected as he started trying to make for the paper again. He already had his arms wrapped around Sephiroth's neck in an attempt to climb up him. "Why are you so damn tall Seph?"

"You're not even concerned are you Zachary?"

"I will deal with it when the time comes. Genesis needs to learn that Halflings aren't abominations at some point right?" That wasn't exactly the answer that Sephiroth was looking for but Zack was the type to live in the now and when he wanted to do something, he'd follow through with it until he had accomplished it. "Are we done with this conversation yet?"

"One more thing."

Zack was now eyelevel with Sephiroth now that he was pretty much koala holding the General. Sephiroth was glad that most people didn't have the nerve to burst into his room. Zack was the only one that did that.

"Say thank you."

Zack grinned and kissed Sephiroth hard on the lips before the General lowered the paper. It was snatched out of his hands in seconds and Zack was already heading for the door before Sephiroth had even realised he wasn't clinging onto him anymore.

"Thank you Sephy, you know I love you more than Genesis loves Loveless."

Sephiroth sighed and just waved him off. "Have fun puppy."

"Will do!"


	23. Wherein Sephiroth intervenes

_I don't know why but I pretty much had to force out this chapter…_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cloud wasn't sure whether he was having a bad day or just another really weird day. Without Reno there, everything seemed a bit wrong in a sense.

Normally he'd just pair off with Reno for hand to hand but instead, as soon as it looked like Johnny was about to grab him, Lieutenant Fair came out of nowhere and dragged him into a corner, shoving a piece of paper into his face. He recognised it as the letter he had sent to General Sephiroth declining his invitation to join the mentoring programme.

"Explain Spikey."

Cloud blinked in surprise. "I declined?"

"Yes…" Zack drew out the word in an obvious tone. "I know you did. What I would like to know is why you did so, because I won't take the fact that you think you're not good enough as an answer."

Cloud was guessing that 'Reno doesn't trust you within ten feet of me,' wasn't a good enough answer either.

He glanced around the room and noticed that, although they couldn't hear them a lot of the other cadets were watching them, or more specifically, Johnny and that rat that he still hadn't learnt the name of, were looking like they wanted to burn holes into the two of them.

"Do you mind if we discussed this without my peers listening in and watching us?"

Zack blinked at him for a moment as if he was just processing Cloud's words before he looked around. Most of the cadets that had been staring at them quickly averted their attention elsewhere.

Cloud didn't even have the chance to think before Zack grabbed his hand and practically dragged him out of the training hall. After a short walk and an elevator ride he was practically thrown onto Zack's couch while the Lieutenant settled himself into another couch opposite him. Angeal walked out to see what the commotion was about and as soon as he noticed the serious look on Zack's face, he walked straight back into the room he had previously been occupying.

"Now explain."

Cloud seemed to stare at Zack for a long time while he thought over his possible answer. His main concern after all had been Reno. The weasel was only just reaching his dream and if Cloud was with Zack, it would just cause Reno more concern, not that he wasn't already concerned over the other cadets and their frequent cornering but that probably wouldn't be an answer that Zack would accept.

"Sir, have you ever been bullied before?"

Zack looked somewhat taken aback from the question. Hell even Cloud himself was surprised that the question came out of his mouth. Zack looked thoughtful for a moment before he finally lent back on his seat.

"Can't say that I have."

"You ever heard the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?"

"A few times… Never really understood that saying actually…"

Cloud just shook his head and thought for a moment before he decided to just get straight to the point. "Basically what I'm trying to say is that if I join the mentoring programme it will just give my peers a reason to be jealous and more of a reason to corner me in dark hallways just to beat the hell out of me because I'm getting special treatment and they're not. Not to mention, in case you haven't noticed, Reno's no longer around so I'm pretty much stuck on my own."

Zack seemed to stare at Cloud for a long time while he tried to process what Cloud was trying to explain before it hit him. So that's what Luxiere meant when he said that Cloud had no one else but Reno. A small grin started making its way across Zack's face and Cloud looked a bit worried before he was suddenly yanked out of his chair.

"Come on Spikey we need to go see someone."

Cloud pretty much froze in both shock and surprise as Zack wrapped his hand around his wrist and dragged him back out of the apartment and into one of the nearby elevators.

"Sir… Where are we going?"

"To see General Sexy." Zack pulled out a piece of paper from his pocked and shoved it in Cloud's face. The cadet vaguely wondered if Zack thought of a new name to call General Sephiroth every time he saw or talked about him, along with wondering why Sephiroth was requesting a meeting with him about his declining joining the mentoring programme.

He didn't have that much time to think because before he knew it, he was being dragged out of the elevator and down a familiar hallway. Zack didn't even stop as he burst through the door to the General's office. Said General merely moved the papers that he seemed to have been working on to the side of his desk and put one of the trays of papers on the floor just as Zack dumped Cloud in the only guest chair and sat himself on the desk where the tray had previously been.

"Um… Sir…?" Cloud stared at Sephiroth a bit awkwardly wondering if it would be weird if he stood up again just to salute.

"Lieutenant Fair I thought I told you to just give the paper to him, not force him into coming to my office as soon as you could." Sephiroth said as he turned his attention to his Lieutenant.

"I just wanted to be here when you talked to Spikey General Sex on legs." Zack grinned back at Sephiroth while Cloud just sat there guessing that the General was used to Zack's random names because the only reaction Zack got was a slight twinge of an eyebrow before Sephiroth turned his attention back to Cloud.

"I believe you know what you're here for cadet."

"Yes sir."

A small grin appeared on Sephiroth's face at the Halfling's reply and Cloud didn't know whether he should be happy or somewhat worried over the look. "Despite the fact that Lieutenant Fair was the one that originally forged my handwriting and sent you that recommendation in the first place."

Cloud couldn't even bring himself to be surprised about that while Zack made an indignant sound in the background.

"I believe that for the sake of this army he had a good idea. Since my Lieutenant is mostly brawn and nearly no brain…"

Another indignant sound came from Zack's general direction.

"… I believe that he'll be the best person to train you in areas that you lack."

Just as Cloud was about to open his mouth and decline again Zack piped up. "Tell him about the perks Seph."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at this before he spoke up again. "If you choose to accept the recommendation you'll be moved into Zack's quarters, seeing as how he's the one that's going to be training you. When you become a SOLDIER you'll be moved into your own quarters. You'll no longer have to attend regular classes, only you'll still need to pass some written exams, but I'm sure that Zack can help you out with everything but anything maths based is beyond him so you'll have to study all that on your own."

Cloud looked somewhat surprised at this. He thought that he'd still be stuck in the barracks if he joined in… But if he was staying with Zack, then Reno wouldn't have to worry so much about him anymore, well despite the fact that he didn't trust Zack as far as he could throw him. Either way accepting Zack as a mentor was looking more and more appealing by the second.

"Also you'll get a higher pay check." Zack added.

"And you get a higher pay check." Sephiroth repeated while rolling his eyes at Zack. "It's only slightly higher than regular cadets though."

Cloud seemed to think over their words for a moment before he turned his attention on Zack. There was one more thing that's bugging him. "General Rhapsodos…"

Sephiroth let off a large sigh at that while Zack just grinned. He jumped off Sephiroth's desk and ruffled Cloud's hair while the Halfling fought the urge to knock the hand away. "Don't worry your little head over it Spikey. If General stick up his ass does anything to you he'll have to answer to me."

Cloud didn't know whether he should be relieved or worried at Zack's words.


	24. Moving In

_I was trying to get this out before Christmas (I even wrote some of it during my lunch breaks at work) but I guess I have to settle for posting it on Christmas day... Merry Christmas everyone~!_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Zack was already regretting getting Cloud to join the mentoring programme. Not that he really regretted doing it, but he would have preferred it if his plan didn't come with a whole lot of conditions. Well it was just one condition but it was still a big job. I mean, so what if there were pizza boxes everywhere and maybe some weird thing growing in the fridge and a full sink of dishes. It wasn't like having a messy apartment ever killed anyone, but Cloud was insistent that if he was to stay, either the puppy cleaned his apartment or Cloud would do it for him, which would be fine if Cloud's way of cleaning wasn't, 'if it looked like useless junk, it was going to go in the bin.' He honestly wondered how Reno managed to stay with Cloud for as long as he did.

"Actually Reno was pretty good. Despite his attitude and how he looks, Reno was a lot cleaner than you think."

Zack stared at Cloud in disbelief while the Halfling shoved some empty pizza boxes into a rubbish bag. "You're kidding me. He totally doesn't look like the type."

"You'd be surprised. He was almost cleaner than me. The only difference between him and I was that he never saw a point in making his bed every morning so I'd end up doing it for him." Cloud opened another pizza box to see a half-eaten pizza inside. Scrunching up his nose at it, he shoved it into the rubbish bag.

"Hey, we could have kept that it looked edible." Zack protested while Cloud gave him a look.

"Lieutenant…"

"Zack."

"… Zack. We don't know how long that box has been in here. Even if you're now immune to eating week old junk, it doesn't mean that it isn't detrimental to your health. Not to mention it wasn't even in the fridge to stop bacteria from growing on it."

Zack stared at Cloud for a moment.

"Just a question Spikey… But are you a little bit OCD?"

Cloud froze for a moment before he nodded his head slightly.

"So like… How OCD are you?"

"I'm not that bad. Just some things I'm a bit finicky about. Ingesting stuff that's been out for over a day, putting weird products on my body."

"What about that piercing? Weren't you scared about that needle going in?"

Cloud reached up to touch the piercing. "Reno explained it to me beforehand. The needles are all sterile. Also I've been cleaning it every day and night to avoid infections."

Zack seemed to stare at Cloud for a moment. "Right…" He turned his attention back to what he was doing.

There was a few moments of silence as the two continued to clean before the front door flew open. Cloud seemed to freeze in place while Zack perked up at the sight of the person at the door.

"Angeal!"

"If I had known that letting you have a student would make you clean your apartment I would have suggested it sooner puppy."

Zack pouted momentarily, then grinned as he brought Angeal's attention over to where Cloud was still frozen. "I haven't properly introduced you to my student yet have I?"

Angeal shook his head.

"Angeal, this is Cloud Strife. Cloud this is Angeal, just so you know he comes up a lot more than Genesis and Sephy do."

"Speaking of Genesis…" Angeal looked a bit unsurely at Cloud. Sephiroth had already told him about that incident in the hallway with Genesis and Cloud. "He may have followed me up…"

"Zackary!"

"… Here…"

The red haired General appeared at the doorway not looking at all happy about the fact that Cloud was in the wolf's apartment. The Halfling paled at the sight of him.

"What is the meaning of this Zachary and why did none of you tell me that he was planning on training this abomination Angeal?" Genesis looked at the other general accusingly.

"Now, now, calm down Genesis, Zack decided this on his own."

"And this abomination as you call him…" Cloud looked surprised at the pissed off look on Zack's face. He had never really seen the Lieutenant that angry before. "Has a name. His name is Cloud Strife, now either you respect him Genesis Rhapsodos, or I don't want to see you in my apartment ever again."

Even Genesis and Angeal looked a bit taken aback at Zack's attitude. After the initial shock at his lover actually getting angry at him, Genesis' expression turned back into a glare. "I'll accept this for now Zack, but you better not bring that thing down to our apartment, ever. I don't want it contaminating everything."

"Out Genesis, now." At the Lieutenant's words, Genesis gave one last glare at Cloud before he strode out of the room.

Once he was out of sight, Zack went to shut the door before giving Cloud an apologetic grin. "Sorry about that Spikey…"

Angeal patted Zack on the back. "I didn't think you had it in you puppy. When Sephiroth said that you'd deal with it, I didn't think you meant that way, but are you sure that was the best idea? After all that, Genesis isn't going to be happy with you for a fairly long time."

"Gen will live. I'm hoping that he'll just get used to the idea of having Spikey around and he'd stop it with that whole… What was that thing that he called you the first time you meet Cloudy?"

"A transparent charlatan."

"Yeah the whole transparent charlatan thing… What the hell is that anyways? It sounds like a see through whore or something like that."

Cloud couldn't help it, despite the fact that he was in front of his superiors, he started laughing. Zack looked surprised at the sound for a moment before he broke out into a grin. "You finally laughed Spikey."

"I'm sorry…" Cloud said through his laughter. "A see through whore?" His laughter started up again. "Only you would think up something like that Zack…"

Zack feigned hurt. "What do you mean? It sounds legit right?" Cloud just started laughing again.

A soft smile appeared on Angeal's face as he watched the two interact, it seemed as if Zack had everything under control from his side, it was just, as Zack said, a matter of getting Genesis used to the idea of having the Halfling around.


	25. First Tsurugi

_Attempted to get this out on New Years but then stuff happened and yeah… Happy New Year!_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Hey Spikey is that all you've got?" Zack questioned as he watched Cloud dump his miniscule amount of clothing on the bed. It consisted of about three shirts, three pairs of pants, some underwear and his cadet uniform. Zack on the other hand was carrying some other things that were locked up in a trunk.

"I figured that I'd be wearing my cadet uniform for most of the time. All these other clothes are the ones that I wear for training."

Zack just stared at the clothes for a few moments with a frown on his face. "So… Other cadets didn't steal your clothes and throw them into an incinerator or anything like that when you were changing in the lockers."

Cloud gave Zack a weird look. "Reno was usually around all the time and even if he wasn't around… I doubt they'd resort to that kind of childish way of bullying."

Zack pouted. "It's not that childish! I hide all of Seph's leather clothes all the time. It's totally worth the effort just to see him walk around in a shirt and jeans."

Cloud didn't even bother responding. After spending the whole day moving his stuff he had pretty much given in to most of Zack's demands, like calling him by his name, and pretty much threw most of his reserved attitude out of the window just to stop the Lieutenant from procrastinating.

Zack just pouted some more until he figured that Cloud wasn't going to react and dumped the Halfling's trunk on the floor beside the bed. "So what's in this heavy trunk that you couldn't lift it up on your own?"

"A sword and some materia."

Zack stared at him disbelievingly. "No way a sword would be that heavy and not be the size of a buster… A buster wouldn't even fit in that tiny case!"

Cloud just sighed before reaching around his neck and pulled out a key. After all, if Zack was going to be training him, it would be better if he knew what kind of weapon it was that Cloud wanted to handle. Taking a seat beside the trunk, Cloud slid the key in and flicked the lock open. All Zack could see was a whole lot of blades and seven pieces of materia.

The wolf let out a low whistle. "I thought you said a sword, not many."

"It is a sword." Carefully Cloud started taking out each blade and Zack watched in silence as the Halfling pieced the sword together with practised ease until he found himself staring at a buster sword.

"I stand corrected Spikey, it is a sword." Zack lifted up the weapon, trying out its weight before holding it out for Cloud to take from him.

The cadet didn't even attempt to grab it.

"You know if you don't even try, you're never going to learn how to use it Spike."

"I already know that I can't lift it as I am now."

Zack stared at Cloud with a thoughtful look on his face before he clicked his fingers. "I have an idea." Cloud didn't know whether he should be worried or not. "When your buster's broken up you can use the smaller parts as a weapon right?"

"I… Think so."

Zack stared at Cloud blankly. "You've never tried before?"

The cadet shook his head. "Between helping out my mother, going to school and doing homework? I never had the time to train myself with them."

A small grin appeared on the Lieutenant's face. "Then let's try them out now."

Cloud stared at Zack incredulously. "You mean here? In the middle of my room?"

"Yes." Zack replied as if it was perfectly normal to be swinging a sword in the middle of a bedroom. Cloud just sighed before he started taking his sword apart again.

"Which one should I try out first?"

"Err…" Cloud just stared at the wolf with a blank look on his face. Did the Lieutenant really know what he was doing?

"Go with the lightest one there." At the sound of the new voice both men turned their attention to the bedroom door. Cloud seemed to freeze as usual while Zack perked up at the sight of Sephiroth standing there.

"General Sexiroth!"

"It's Sephiroth, puppy." Sephiroth seemed to automatically correct him.

Zack just ignored the comment and continued on as if the General didn't say anything. "What are you doing here?"

"Angeal said something about you cleaning your apartment. It sounded like some kind of miracle so I thought it would be best to witness it in person."

Zack pouted. "My apartment isn't that messy!"

"You seem to be the only one that thinks that way puppy." Zack just crossed his arms and pouted some more at that comment. "So what was all that about just now? Teaching your new student about swordsmanship?"

Zack's mood seemed to turn a full one-eighty on the topic of Cloud's sword. "Seph, you should see his sword! It fits together like a puzzle!"

Sephiroth took a look at the pieces on the ground before turning his attention to the Halfling. "What's its name?"

"First Tsurugi." Cloud replied in a small voice, not even lifting his head up to look at the General. He was already feeling a bit too exposed with the General standing there in this weird environment.

"It sounds like a fitting name. You have good sense cadet."

Cloud almost immediately blushed at the compliment.

"Hmm." A huge grin appeared on Zack's face as he took note of Cloud's reaction. "Spikey is there something you're not telling me? Like how you have a crush on General sweep you off your feet and not just in the metaphorical sense."

"Don't be stupid Zack!" Despite his protest Cloud could feel his cheeks heating up even more.

"That's too bad." Both Cloud and Zack stared at Sephiroth with surprised expressions on their faces. "I would actually be honoured if a cute fledgling like you were interested in me."

"Hey, Seph, Spikey's my cute little fledgling… I mean student." Zack protested, though you could see the playful look in his expression. "Only I'm allowed to hit on him."

"Then we can just make him my student. After all, I am the one that recommended that he join the mentor programme."

"I'm the one that found him!"

Cloud really couldn't believe that he was seeing this. Were the two really play fighting in front of him? Well, Zack he could understand, but the General?

"You may have found him Zachary, but you have to remember, you only specialise in broadswords. I, on the other hand, am quite adept to the use of any kind of sword. Besides." Sephiroth reached over two pick up two of the swords, one in each of his hands. "I don't think you've had any experience with dual wielding."

Zack muttered something about dual wielding in an entirely different way, which caused Cloud to blush but Sephiroth just ignored the comment. "All joking aside." The general took a better look at the weapon now that he was holding some of the parts. "Cadet, where did you get this sword from? Another one of those presents from your father?"

"…Yes." Cloud answered slowly. "When I was old enough to join Shinra and I got into the cadet programme he sent it to my dorm."

Zack let out a low whistle. "Man what kind of a person could get all that materia and a weapon of that kind of calibre? Your father must be one rich human." Not really wanting to lie to Zack, Cloud merely nodded his head.

Sephiroth seemed to choose that moment to place Cloud's swords back with their other parts before making his way back to the door. "I'm heading back to work now." He paused and turned his attention over to Cloud. "Cadet, I know that my Lieutenant can be hard to babysit at times, but I'm leaving him in your care."

"Seph!" Zack protested. "What do you mean by leaving me in his care? I'm his teacher! Not a child that needs to be babysat!"

Sephiroth let out a low chuckle. "I know you're not a child. You're a puppy." Sephiroth was quick to close the door just as a pillow was hurtled at him.

"That jerk… Hey Cloud." Said cadet turned his attention over to Zack. "You know all about Seph and I being lovers and all that right."

"Your relationship is like an open secret Lieutenant."

"Then you know that I'm one of the few people that knows Seph the best right?" Cloud blinked, exactly where was this going?

"That's generally how relationships work Lieutenant."

"Good, then listen to every single word that I'm going to say to you and remember them." Cloud nodded his head hesitantly. "Sephiroth is the type of crow that likes to eat little fledglings like you for breakfast, so don't go anywhere near him."

Cloud blinked. "… What?"

"What I'm trying to say is, don't ever agree to becoming Sephiroth's student alright?"

"…O…K?"

"Good." Zack breathed a sigh of relief while Cloud tried to keep a straight face.

It worked for about a second before the cadet burst into laughter.


	26. First Day Of Training

_I am so sorry, this was meant to be out last weekend, but I went to my sister's place and stayed the night there and stuff happened…_

_Also, a lot of people seem to be asking me about Clouds father and whether or not he's going to show up at some point… Let's go with maybe. Insert evil laughter here._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Rufus honestly didn't know what to expect when Zack dragged him out of his apartment, down the elevator, and into one of the training rooms where a familiar blond cadet was sitting on the floor with six swords sitting in front of him. Cloud almost immediately looked up with a smile when Zack burst into the room, but seemed to pale at the sight of Rufus. "Vice president Shinra sir!" The Halfling stood up and saluted him. Rufus smirked a little. At least he knew that he had this kind of effect on people despite the fact that he was being dragged around by Zack.

"At ease cadet." He finally managed to yank his arm out of Zack's grip. "I'm only here to observe and make sure that Zack doesn't do anything stupid."

"And because I didn't want him to just sit in his apartment brooding all day." Zack added.

The spider glared at him for a moment before turning his attention back on Cloud. "What's with the swords?"

"They're Spikey's. I'm going to train him on some sword basics first before working on some hand to hand later on."

Rufus raised an eyebrow. "You sure that's a good idea? Wouldn't it be better if you focused on hand to hand first and get him competent enough to defend himself before you let him swing those things around?"

"Angeal said that he was going to come later to gauge Cloud's abilities. See what he's doing wrong first before he tells me how I can train him properly in that area, since I'm apparently good enough to know what I myself am doing wrong, but I'm not good enough to be able to tell what someone else is doing wrong."

Rufus shook his head. "And yet Sephiroth allowed you to become his mentor. I'll admit you're good at beating up other people, but training someone else to do the same thing is an entirely different story."

Zack sighed before he pointed in the direction of the observatory box above the training area. "Seph's up there."

"I knew there was a catch… So, beside your idiotic excuse of wanting to get me out of my apartment. What's the point of me being here if the general's supervising you?"

Zack seemed to think over Rufus' words for a few moments. "Moral support?"

Rufus just sighed at Zack's meek reply. "Whatever Zachary. Let's just get this over and done with."

Zack grinned and picked up one of Cloud's smaller swords before handing it over to the Cadet. "Alright Spikey. We'll start with how you hold a sword first. We'll change when you can dual wield, but that won't be for a while…"

Rufus took a seat a little away from the two and watched as the cadet fumbled around in an attempt to follow Zack's instructions. About an hour of watching later Rufus could feel his mind drifting off and his thoughts went to his situation with Tseng. The two hadn't talked that much since that argument they had in Tseng's office. Of course, the Turk had messaged him about the situation with Reno. The newest Turk was now living with Rude, but that hadn't changed anything between them. Rufus only left his apartment for work or to take dark nation for a walk. The only interaction he had with the fox were awkward meetings where even Scarlet knew it wasn't a good idea to piss either of them off.

The sound of a door opening jumped Rufus out of his thoughts and he lifted his hand in greeting as Angeal walked in. Angeal nodded his head in return as he made his way over to Zack and Cloud. The cadet seemed to freeze at the sight of the SOLDIER, but relaxed a little with a little coaxing from Zack and the three started on their hand to hand training.

About another half an hour later the doors opened again and Tseng stepped into the training room. Rufus' body tensed as the leader of the Turks approached him.

"We need to talk."

"I thought we already did enough talking last time."

Tseng ran a hand through his hair, sighing in a somewhat exasperated fashion. "How many times are we going to go through this?"

The three on the other side of the training room seemed to have stopped to watch their conversation and Zack had moved over to cover Cloud's ears.

"You've been ignoring me. Only seeing me in situations where you know we can't talk and by the time I go searching for you after, you're already in your apartment with your pet watching the door. Really, what do you think you're going to accomplish by doing this all over again?"

"At least it makes me feel better. Just looking at you now is pissing me off. Don't tell me that you're the reason that Zack got me out of my apartment." Rufus turned his glare over to the wolf, who smiled back sheepishly, seemingly hearing what he was saying despite the distance. Rufus made a mental note to murder his best friend later.

"The only reason I had to resort to that was because you're acting like a child and not facing up to our problems like we're supposed to in a relationship."

"Excuse me, but I'm not the one with the problem. You're the one that's chasing after someone else while you're meant to be with me."

Tseng glanced over to where the other three were watching them before grabbing Rufus by the arm.

"What do you think you're doing" Let me go Tseng!" It seemed that today was just one of those days where everyone thought it was a good idea to drag him around everywhere.

"I'm not about to discuss this here." Without another word, he dragged Rufus out of the training room.

Over on the other side of the room, Zack pulled his hands away from Cloud's ears, while the cadet just looked at him confused. "What was that all about? And why did you block my ears?"

"Err…" Zack scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"That's probably something you don't want to hear about." Angeal cut in. "Let's just say that Rufus and Tseng aren't on the best of terms right now and we'll leave it at that."


	27. Wherein Zack Intervenes

_Man this chapter took me… A year? I'm sorry I really REALLY hated it. I even deleted it and rewrote it a couple… Hundred times and Tseng still turned out OOC. It's the best I could do in between work and life and stuff._

_In other news. I MIGHT be moving to Japan in a few months._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Rufus found himself in Tseng's apartment in a matter of minutes. Before he could even find his bearings, he was seated at the dining table and tied to the chair.

"What do you think you're doing Tseng?"

"If I do this then you won't run away again."

Rufus just stared back at the fox incredulously. Did he really think that he was going to run away in this kind of situation?

"You don't have any webbing to manipulate here, not to mention your pet isn't around to help you out either."

"So what are you trying to do? Don't tell me you actually just want to talk."

Tseng could already feel a headache coming on and he pressed two fingers against his forehead in an attempt to stave it off. "You know sometimes I really think you act too much like a child."

Rufus snorted. "This coming from you."

"Didn't I tell you already? This thing… This obsession that you seem to think I have is all over." Tseng sighed exasperatedly while he paced around the room, his tail flicking in a somewhat irritated fashion. Rufus' eyes shifted over to the appendage, quite surprised to see it out. Tseng often didn't reveal his monster aspects out of habit, seeing as how he was often outside of Midgar and around humans. "That weasel's already within my ranks."

Rufus' attention snapped back to the fox's face at the sound of Tseng's voice.

"The only time we interact with each other is just for work. Our relationship is purely on a professional level."

"Isn't that how we started out?" Rufus' automatic statement stopped Tseng in his tracks. "A long time ago we didn't have anything to do with each other unless it was for work related reasons."

Tseng seemed to stare at Rufus for a long time, seemingly processing his words before a small smile spread across his face. "Are you jealous?"

"Why the hell would I be jealous of some snotty little weasel? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm Shinra's Vice President!"

Tseng's smile merely widened at the spider's denial. "So you are jealous."

"Are you deaf or something Tseng? I just said that I wasn't…" Before Rufus could say another word, the Turk swooped down and pressed his lips against the spiders'.

"I'm not going to repeat myself ever again so you'd better listen carefully." Tseng spoke softly against Rufus' lips.

"Even if I don't want to hear it?" The spider was pouting while Tseng's smile had morphed into a smirk.

"Just listen." He shifted so that his lips were just beside Rufus' ear. His breath sent shivers down the spider's spine. "I'm going to say something that's entirely out of character for me, so I want you to listen for once, do you think you can do that?"

Rufus' snorted despite the tingly feeling the fox was giving him from his close proximity. "Even if I didn't want to hear what you're going to say, I can't help but listen in this kind of situation."

Tseng's smirk widened before he decided to speak. "There has only been you. I wouldn't ignore the presidents orders just to have some little fling with you when he told me that he didn't like our relationship and he wanted it to stop. You are mine and no little trainee Turk is going to change that. Do you understand?" There was a long silence when Tseng pulled back to hear Rufus' answer.

"I'm holding you to that you stupid fox."

Tseng merely smirked at the vice presidents reply.

* * *

><p>Rufus didn't even look up as Zack burst into his office and sat himself down on the edge of his desk with a smug smile on his face, not caring that he was probably sitting on some important documents. There was an awkward silence as Rufus continued to read and sign papers, ignoring the fact that the wolf was sitting on his desk.<p>

"So…" Zack began.

"I got Lazard to assign you on a mission for the next few days. You're going to Junon to welcome some new recruits and escort them back to Midgar."

Zack stared at Rufus in shock. "But… Rufus… Why… But I…"

A small smirk appeared on Rufus' face. "You will be leaving within the week. Have fun Zachary."

Zack pouted and hopped off the desk, not caring that his actions sent some of Rufus' paper work flying. "See if I ever do anything nice for you ever again… And I hope you drown in your paperwork." He started stomping his way to the door.

"And Zack…"

The wolf paused to look at the spider as he started opening the door.

"Thank you."

"I'm still angry at you."

Despite his words, a small smile appeared on Zack's face as he made his way out of the office. It looked like everything was going to be alright, for now.


	28. Meeting for the first time

_Apparently I think of plots and stuff better when I'm on a plane or at work… A whole two and a half pages._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"And Angeal said that he'll train you in hand to hand while Seph said that when he has time he'll teach you some sword arts… Just remember Spike, those two are animals, don't fall for their tricks, especially when it comes to Seph. If given the chance he'll gobble you up faster than a Hungry…"

"Zachary."

Zack jumped and slowly turned around only to be faced with the General in question.

"Are you poisoning that cadets mind with lies about me again… And comparing me to a Hungry."

"…No?"

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. "No?"

There was a moment of silence before Zack finally caved. "… Maybe a little? I mean look at you. Your hair is the same colour as a Hungry and you eat up little cadets like poor little Spikey over here." As if to protect his student Zack wrapped his arms around Cloud, using his larger body to shield him from Sephiroth's view, while Cloud squeaked and tried to wrestle his way out of the first classes arms, despite knowing that resisting was pointless.

"I'm going to assume you've never been to Corel Valley before Lieutenant because if you had, you'd know that Hungrys' are white. My hair is silver." Sephiroth reached over to separate the two and Cloud sighed in relief when Zack's arms were pulled away, only to find himself in another pair of arms. He felt the heat rise up in his cheeks as soon as he realised that Sephiroth was holding him up against his chest. "And unlike Hungrys', I wouldn't need to cast Mini on your little cadet to eat him up."

Cloud could feel his head being tilted up and he was faced with Sephiroth's smirk. By now he was sure he was redder than a cherry.

"Do I even want to know what's happening here?"

Cloud was quick to use the sudden entry of a new person to his advantage as he practically bolted out of Sephiroth's arms and ended up all the way on the other side of the apartment away from both Zack and Sephiroth as Cissnei entered the room.

"What are you doing here?" Sephiroth questioned as his expression morphed into his usual indifferent look that he usually used when dealing with other employee's.

Cissnei just held up a small stack of papers. "I came to give this to your Lieutenant. It's the list of all the new recruits that you're going to pick up as well as all of your transport details. Katana and I will be accompanying you."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at that. "Two Turks? What makes you think that my Lieutenant would even need escorts in the first place?"

"Technically I'm going to be the Lieutenant's only escort. Katana is merely flying the helicopter there and dropping the two of us off before heading off to Wutai."

"What's in Wutai?" Zack questioned.

"Nothing much… Just a troublesome little monkey that got away. We're just making sure that it's not going to be a problem that's all."

Zack blinked. "This monkey doesn't happen to go by the name Yuffie does it?"

Cissnei stared at Zack for a long time before she replied. "What do you know about her?"

"I met her last time I went to Wutai. Sometime near the end of the war. She challenged me to a treasure hunt and somehow managed to steal my number and we've been running into each other ever since." Zack whipped out his phone and pressed a few buttons before turning it in Cissnei's direction so that she could see all of his messages.

She snatched the phone out of his hand to get a better look. "Can I… Borrow your phone for a little while?" Slowly Zack nodded his head. "I'll give it back to you in the heli. We're meeting on the roof in five hours." Without turning her head away from the phone she tossed the papers in Zack's direction before making her way out of the room.

Zack only just managed to catch them before they hit the ground. "What was that about?"

Both Cloud and Sephiroth just shrugged their shoulders and there was a long moment of silence before Zack jumped up and grabbed Cloud's arm. "Well then, now that that's done. We've got somewhere to go."

"And where do you think you're going before your mission?" Sephiroth raised an eyebrow as Zack dragged his student towards the door.

"Slums. I'll be back before it's time to go. Yes I've already packed my bags. Yes I remembered to bring my toothbrush and yes my PHS charger is in there too." Zack said before Sephiroth could open his mouth to ask any of those questions.

The general just sighed. "Go on then."

"Thanks Seph. Tell everyone that I'll see them when I come back from Junon. Also can you lock the door when you leave?"

"I'm not you Zachary. Unlike you I remember to lock doors."

"Thanks Seph love you." With that Zack gave Cloud one more tug through the apartment door and slammed it shut behind him.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later Cloud found himself beside Zack on a train heading towards the slums while Zack was diligently reading through the papers Cissnei had thrown at him.<p>

"So… Where are we going?" The Halfling finally questioned after a long moment of silence.

"Going to go meet someone." They both fell silent again at Zack's short answer.

As soon as the train stopped, Cloud felt himself being dragged by the arm again. They went straight past the wall market and through a rundown playground before making their way towards sector 5. They stopped at a small house and Cloud was surprised to see that there were plants growing in the back area.

"Hey Zack… There's…"

"Yeah I know." Zack grinned as he knocked on the door. A young woman with long brown hair and bright green eyes opened the door. She was wearing a white and blue dress and a bright smile appeared on her face when she saw Zack standing before her.

"Zack!"

Said SOLDER smiled in return. "Hey Aerith. I wanted to introduce you to someone." Zack pushed Cloud in front of him so that the two were standing face to face. "This is Cloud." Something seemed to click in the back of Clouds' mind and Aerith seemed to stare at him with a thoughtful look on her face before it morphed back into a smile.

"Hello Cloud. I'm Aerith Gainsborough." She held out her hand.

"Cloud Strife." Hesitantly Cloud reached out and gave her hand a gentle shake before pulling away. Zack's grin seemed to widen and Aerith took a step back as Zack practically shoved Cloud into the house.

"So what brings you two into the slums at this time of day?" Aerith questioned as she ushered them both towards the dining room table. She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before reappearing with two cups of tea and a teapot.

"Just thought I'd introduce you to my student before I went on my first mission. It's going to be Cloud's first time without me as my student. I was hoping that he'd be able to run here if he ever needed to get away."

Aerith nodded as she took a seat at the table with them. "He's free to come any time." She stared at Cloud with a knowing expression on her face and Cloud couldn't help but think that she could see right through him.

As if on cue, Cloud's PHS started ringing and the cadet jumped in fright. "Excuse me." He grabbed his phone and stared at the unknown number in confusion for a moment before he flipped open the device and held it up to his ear. "Hello?"

"Strife?"

"Yes?" He got the feeling that he should have known the gruff voice on the other side of the line but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"It's Tseng. Can you put Zack on the line?" The Halfling made a small sound of agreement before he passed the phone over to Zack.

"It's Tseng." It was now Zack's turn to look confused.

"Excuse me for a moment… It's probably to do with my PHS." With that the SOLDIER stepped out of the front door and shut it behind him, leaving Aerith and Cloud alone in silence.

"So…" Aerith began.

"Are you a phoenix?" Cloud was surprised that he just let his mouth run with his head. He was even more surprised when Aerith merely started laughing.

"It's the first time someone's just out and asked me that before." She continued to laugh for a few moments while Cloud just wished he could sink into his chair. When her laughter finally died down she answered Cloud's question. "My mother was a phoenix, the same as me. My father's human so I'm actually half." A moment later and Cloud was staring at a pair of golden wings.

"Does Zack know?" Cloud questioned as he stared at her wings in awe.

"He does… Does he know about you?" The Halfling was somewhat surprised at the question and Aerith smiled knowingly. "Don't worry, I won't tell him." Cloud sighed in relief.

"Thank you…"

"Though you could just tell him you know. You can trust that Zack won't tell anyone." Cloud didn't look so sure about that.

"My parents are the only ones that know… And you… I've been hiding this for pretty much my whole life. It's not easy for me to just… Tell anyone."

"What about me?"

"We're the same aren't we?" She smiled.

"I'm pretty sure that my wings aren't white and I'm not quite clear on your abilities but I'm pretty sure that you're not a Halfling." Cloud smiled back and a second later his small grey tipped wings made an appearance.

"That's what everyone thinks."

"Believe me Cloud, it'll get harder to hide it. You're trying to get into SOLDIER right?" Cloud nodded. "You're going to be put into situations… Things you can't control and someone's going to find out eventually. What are you going to do then? Where are you going to run to? I mean if no one around you knows, who are you going to know who to trust and where you can hide?"

"Well I have one now don't I?" Aerith just shook her head with her smile still on her face.

"I'll do what I can for you, since we are the same… But Cloud…"

"I know… Be careful… My mother used to say that to me all the time. Be careful, don't let your wings out unnecessarily, remember you're a crane not a…"

"Sorry about that." Both Aerith and Cloud almost jumped as Zack opened the door and tossed Cloud's phone across the table back to the Cadet. "Need to head back Cloud. Tseng wants to talk to me a bit more about the whole Yuffie thing before I head off to Junon…" He stopped when he noticed that the two were both staring at him like a pair of chocobo's caught in the headlights. "Was I… Interrupting something?"

Aerith laughed a little, shaking her head. "No, Cloud and I were just talking about you that's all."

Zack pouted a little. "That's mean… I hope you were only saying good things about me."

Cloud was quick to follow up on Aerith's story. "I was telling Aerith about when I just moved into your apartment and you had all of that old pizza all over the floor."

"Hey it was perfectly edible…"

"Anyway." Cloud was quick to steer the conversation away from that topic. "You were saying about Tseng wanting you to come back?"

"Yeah." Zack sighed. "Guess you can come down on your own some time to get to know Aerith better… No more talking about me though."

"Then what else are we meant to talk about?" Aerith grinned. "You're the only thing that we have in common at the moment."

Zack pouted while Cloud got up out of his seat. Zack was quick to follow his lead and started heading towards the door.

Cloud paused on his way out and turned his head around to face Aerith. "Thanks for the tea."

Aerith also stood up at his words. "It was no problem… Also about that other thing…"

"I'll be sure to run here if something happens." Aerith nodded as the two started making their way out of her house.

* * *

><p><em>One other thing before I finish off. I have a guessing game for you. Someone within Shinra will find out about Cloud. I just thought it would be fun to see who you all think it'd be.<em>


	29. When the Wolf's away

_Yup, I definitely work better when I'm on a plane._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

"Arms in front of you as if you're trying to protect your face. Move your legs apart. Not that far. Keep them firm on the ground, you won't be using them until you get your arms right so just focus on keeping yourself stable. I want you to be stable enough that even a behemoth can't knock you down."

Cloud couldn't help the sarcastic voice in his head that was telling him that a behemoth could probably just pick him up with little effort but held his tongue as Angeal instructed him.

"You know a behemoth could probably just lift him in the air and throw him around like a rag doll without even breaking a sweat." It honestly didn't help that both Genesis and Sephiroth were sitting there observing them both and Genesis seemed to be taking every opportunity to put Cloud down despite the looks that Sephiroth and Angeal kept on giving him every time he opened his mouth.

"Gen." Angeal also seemed to have had enough of Genesis' comments. "If you've got nothing helpful to say then why are you here?"

"Aren't you and Sephiroth the ones that wanted me here so that you'd have an outside opinion on anything that the little atrocity does. I was merely stating my opinions."

Angeal pressed his fingers against his forehead in frustration and Sephiroth finally got up from his seat. "I'll take over for now and teach him some sword work since you two aren't really getting anywhere. Angeal, you go hang out with our wayward lover and try to keep him out of trouble."

"I heard that." Genesis glared and Sephiroth merely stared back at him as if it was just stating the obvious and Angeal started making his way towards Genesis.

Cloud on the other hand just stood there like he wasn't sure how to deal with the situation.

"Come on then wayward lover. We need to have a talk before this gets any worse than it already is. You've already got the puppy angry with you." Angeal wrapped his hand around one of Genesis' wrists and started tugging him towards the door.

"The puppy wouldn't be angry with me if it wasn't for that disgusting little…"

Cloud didn't get to hear the rest of what Genesis was about to say because the door closed behind them. Sephiroth cleared his throat and Cloud almost jumped in surprise. He had almost forgotten that the other General was still there.

"Come on then. We'll start with your stance and work our way up from there."

Cloud allowed Sephiroth to wrap his arms around him from behind so that he could control Cloud's hands. He felt a nudge at his feet and he started moving his legs as well as Sephiroth used his own to direct them. He was glad that Sephiroth couldn't see his face at the moment because he was sure that all the blood in his body had rushed to his face.

"Sir?" Cloud began as an attempt to distract himself from their current position. Sephiroth hummed to indicate that he was listening. "Do you honestly condone this whole thing with Zack? I mean you and General Hewely seem to be alright but General Rhapsodos…"

"You agreed to it didn't you cadet?"

"Only because the Lieutenant was so persistent…"

"You'll learn cadet that Zack always gets his way no matter what. For some reason he saw something in you and decided that he wanted you to be his student. Since he's on a mission right now, he even took the initiative to get Angeal and I to train you. In my opinion, you being here is making him become more responsible, though I'll admit his affection for you is somewhat disconcerting I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust that he won't do anything questionable to you."

"I would never…"

"I'm more concerned that he'd try to take advantage of you than you trying to steal him away from us… Though I wouldn't blame him if he did try something." The smirk on Sephiroth's face sent shivers down Cloud's spine and the Halfling hoped that the general wouldn't notice. "Concentrate cadet. This is how you're going to have to hold your broadsword when you're actually able to hold it."

"I thought that I was going to learn how to hold one of the smaller blades first."

"You are. I just thought it would be better if you knew from the beginning how you're going to be holding all of your swords." There was the sound of metal sliding out of a sheath and Cloud soon found himself with Masamune in his hands while Sephiroth was supporting his hands from behind so that he wouldn't drop the weapon.

"S… Sir…"

"Drop it and you won't want to know what the consequences are cadet." Cloud was pretty sure that Sephiroth could feel him shaking now. "Now normally I wouldn't hold Masamune like this but I'm going to take you through the motions of how you're meant to use a broadsword…"

* * *

><p>A few hours later Cloud was face down on the couch in Zack's apartment. He had to force himself to take a shower despite his aching muscles. After his lesson with Sephiroth the general had told him that he had the rest of the day to recover while he, Angeal and Genesis spent some time together.<p>

With that thought in mind he quickly surveyed the apartment. He was careful to search every wall, every plant and the insides of all the desks before he made sure that the front door was locked and he pulled all the curtains. When he was sure that the room was secured he settled himself on his stomach on the couch before unfurling his white wings. He stared at them for a few moments and reached out his hands, pulling his wings closer to himself so that he could run his fingers through his feathers.

It had only been a few weeks since he had last seen his wings, for the sake of Reno's plan to get into the Turks, but it had felt like years since he had been able to actually look at them. A good half an hour later of Cloud just relishing in the feeling of his wings, he could feel himself getting tired and he wrapped the appendages around himself before curling up on the couch and shutting his eyes.

* * *

><p>To say that he was pissed off was probably an understatement. No, Genesis was livid. He didn't see what was so great about this Halfling that Zack was so insistent on training. Not only did the little eye sore have to get Sephiroth and Angeal to babysit him when the wolf was away, but he was useless. He couldn't throw a punch even if he tried and probably couldn't even lift up a dagger. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes he would have thought that the charlatan would have been terrible with materia.<p>

Either way when Angeal had taken him to his room he had a good lecture about how he should treat other people and that he was going to have to get used to the fact that the brat was going to be around for a long time. Well if he had anything to do with it, the little Halfling wasn't going to be around for much longer. Since both Angeal and Sephiroth had gone off to let him cool down, as they said. He was going to get rid of that brat while they weren't around to stop him.

He stopped at Zack's door and swiped his spare card through the sensor before reaching for the doorknob. He was surprised to find that it was still locked shut. Maybe the Halfling was somewhat competent since he knew to make sure that the manual lock was set in case someone had the key for the electronic lock. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know that most SOLDIER's were quite competent at picking locks.

* * *

><p>Inside Zack's apartment Cloud could hear something in the back of his mind. Almost like someone was trying to open the door, but he had locked it, so there was no way that anyone could get in. Before his mind could properly register what was going on, there was a small click. His eyes shot open and the door was flung open and Cloud was faced with the auburn haired General. The two stared at each other in surprise for what seemed like an eternity before two words left Genesis' mouth.<p>

"White… Crow."

* * *

><p><em>Congrats to everyone that guessed right. I'm quite surprised at some of the guesses. Quite a lot of people thought it was going to be one of the Turks or Rufus. Also those that were anxious about finding out what Cloud was… You've got it now… Hope I didn't disappoint anyone too badly.<em>


	30. The Weasel and the Wolf

_Found something new to do at work in the mornings when I have that whole hour to myself because my brother insists on dropping me off at 7 when I start at 8_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Reno didn't think that being in the Turks was going to be like this. Actually that wasn't quite right. This was exactly what he thought the Turks was going to be like. There was training in pretty much every fighting style that he could think of and so far he had only been assisting in the small missions that he and his partner had been assigned on. What he didn't expect was that this whole time he'd be worrying about a little chocobo that he had left in the cadet barracks a few weeks ago.

"What's up partner?"

Reno looked up from the couch that he was lying on in their spacious apartment. "Hey Rude."

He had surprisingly gotten along with his partner. Rude was quiet for most part but it wasn't that awkward kind of silent. Basically Reno would talk and Rude would listen and pipe in if he thought it was necessary.

"Worried about that bird you left for the wolves? Or should I say rats?"

Reno let out a small snort of laughter. "Yeah. Still feelin kinda bad that I left him on his own still. What's up anyway? We got a new mission or something?"

"Got news for you. Whether it will make you feel better or not will be dependent on how much you like the generals."

Reno raised an eyebrow at this.

"It's about your bird."

This got Reno's full attention and he sat up from where he was lying on the couch.

"Apparently he got adopted by the general's wolf and he's living with Zack now."

"You're joking me." Rude shook his head. "Why didn't he tell me. I've got to go call him." Reno was quick to get off the couch to go search for his PHS but Rude beat him to it and grabbed him by the collar.

"Hey, what's the big deal?"

"We have a mission."

"What? Are you kidding me? Why couldn't you say that before? Can I just call the chickabo first?"

Rude shook his head again as he started dragging Reno towards the door.

"Tseng's waiting for us."

* * *

><p>Junon was probably one of the few places Zack hated. Not only could you not see the sky, but it stank and there was nothing fun to do. All there was, was that giant canon that made it look like president Shinra was trying to compensate for something.<p>

"Why are we here again Cissnei? It's so boring."

Said Turk just rolled her eyes as they were making their way towards the grounds where they'd be meeting the new cadets. "Maybe you should learn not to stick your nose into the bosses relationship. Maybe then you wouldn't be put into these kinds of situations."

"Hey! I was trying to be a good friend, and besides, it worked out didn't it? They're back together and aren't all grumpy at each other and everyone's happy."

"I'll give you that… Look on the bright side. It's just a week and after that you can head back to Midgar and go do… Whatever you first class SOLDIER's do on your days off."

"Paper work and training Cloudy."

"That's right. How is your little cadet doing? I heard that he was friends with our own new recruit… Wait a moment… Was he the one that went scampering off when you were asking me about how I got into the Turks the other day?"

Zack just turned his head away at if he wasn't listening.

"Zackery…"

"It might have been a little chocobo?"

"No wonder he got into our ranks so fast. He already had Tseng's attention in the first place, but Tseng was waiting for him to do something to prove himself."

"It was just a little push. He was going to get into the Turks away, right?"

"That wasn't the point Zack… Anyway, what's done is done."

"How is the weasel doing? He working his way up?"

"He's doing well in his training according to Rude. They're getting along well. He hasn't failed in a mission yet."

Zack let off a low whistle. "He's paired up with Rude? Isn't he the one that doesn't talk much and always has his sunglasses on." Cissnei rolled her eyes at that.

"Just because he doesn't talk much around you doesn't mean that he's hard to get along with. He and Reno seem to be getting along fine."

"Right…" Zack obviously didn't believe her.

"So how's your cadet?" Cissnei almost immediately regretted her question as soon as she saw Zack's eyes light up.

"He's awesome. Still a bit crap at the sword work and the hand to hand, but he's a fast learner. He's amazing at materia work… Bit of a neat freak though and…" She got the feeling that this was going to turn into a long day.

* * *

><p><em>By the way. This chapter is not my fault. My beta made me do it.<em>


	31. Hero of the dawn, healer of worlds

_I might have broken Cloud and Genesis… But my beta said that sometimes people need to be broken for them to change so…_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cloud's mind had gone blank. The only thing that was going through his mind at the moment was he should have been careful. He should have known that nowhere was safe. He should have been alert as soon as he had heard that someone was trying to get into the apartment. He had to erase Genesis' memory before the General came back to his senses.

His body had gone into auto drive and before either of them knew what was happening, the doors had been slammed shut and Genesis was underneath him with his hands making their way towards the General's head. Before he could make contact, there was a hand holding his wrist.

"If you think you can erase my memory that easily, you have another thing coming for you brat."

Almost immediately he backed off like a startled rabbit.

"I can't… I can't let you remember… Have to erase your memory, you will tell. I don't want to be locked up in a cage. Please don't lock me up… I don't want them to take my feathers…"

Genesis didn't know what to do now. One minute he was pissed off at a little halfling and now he had a startled white crow curled up on the other side of the room… Probably dead set on erasing his memories too. "Oi cadet." Genesis walked over to him and tried placing his hands on Cloud's shoulders, but the smaller monster didn't seem to take notice. "Hey cadet." He shook him a little. "CADET!" His yelling seemed to snap Cloud out of his little rant and the smaller crow stared at Genesis wide eyed. "Honestly you're a walking talking legend that's in the military and you break down as soon as one person finds out. What kind of a SOLDIER do you think you're going to be if you get in brat?"

Cloud stared at Genesis in confusion for a moment. "What?"

Genesis sighed in exasperation. "I said what kind of a SOLDIER do you think you're going to be if you get into the military and you break down as easily as a snap of a finger?"

Cloud stared at him for a moment longer. "You're… Not going to put me in a cage?"

Genesis gave him a funny look. "Why… Would I do that?"

"Mother used to tell me stories about the white crow. How they would lock it up in a cage and father said that if that ever happened, they'd pluck my wings." Cloud pulled his wings closer as if to protect himself.

Honestly Genesis could see what attracted everyone else to the halfl… No he was a white crow wasn't he? He couldn't actually believe he was going to kick the cadet out now he would have kicked himself if he had found out later… In fact, he was mentally kicking himself now. "Look, no one's going to put you in a cage or lock you away or pluck your feathers… Probably the only person around here that would do that is profess… Cadet."

The presence of Genesis' hands on his shoulders again seemed to make Cloud jump. "Yes?"

"Have you ever shown your wings outside of Zack's apartment?"

Cloud seemed to think back for a moment before replying. "Twice, in the bathroom of my old room."

Genesis sighed in relief. Hojo never put cameras in the cadet bathrooms. He never had an interest for them unless they were in SOLDER third class and up. "Alright, come on." He held out a hand to Cloud and the smaller crow stared at it sceptically.

"Where are we going?"

"Couch. You don't want to be sitting on the floor against the wall while we talk do you?" Cloud stared for a moment longer before he placed his hand in Genesis' and allowed the older crow to help him up and guide him to the couch. They both sat there in silence for a moment before Genesis spoke. "So what are you doing in Shinra anyways?"

"I needed to get away from Nibelheim and I didn't want to be weak anymore. I was sick of all the hiding and I thought if I was where father was then I wouldn't have to anymore."

Genesis stared at him for a moment. "You know… What you are right?"

"Of course I know!" He seemed to have hit a sore spot with the cadet. "I'm a white crow. A thing out of a children's story. A world creator, a wish granter. The destroyer of the demon king." Yup, definitely hit a sore spot. "Mother and father have been shoving that story down my throat as soon as I knew how to listen."

"That's probably why you're so paranoid about being locked up in a cage and having your feather's plucked from you…"

"Father locked me up in a cage once when I was younger. Just so that I'd know what it would feel like if someone was to ever find out. I think he got sick of erasing people's memories whenever I got caught with my normal wings out."

"So he made you paranoid and taught you how to erase memories. Sounds reasonable."

"Well it kind of worked didn't it? I'm still fighting off the urge to grab you right now and erase this entire moment from your memories." Genesis' backed away from Cloud a little at those words. "Why are you being so nice to me right now anyway?"

"You're not what I thought you were. By the way, shouldn't you be putting your wings away right now? You obviously don't know that most of us in SOLDIER can unlock manual locks, plus Sephiroth and Angeal have an access card for this apartment." Cloud's wings quickly shrunk to their smaller size and the tips turned grey. The red general almost regretted saying those words at the loss of those beautiful white wings. "What did you do to make your wings do that?"

"I made a wish." Genesis blinked. Seriously? "My magic is stored in my wings like a normal crow. If you took one of my feathers and made a wish on it, it just happens. You could create worlds if you had enough of an imagination to do so."

"If it was that easy why wouldn't you just wish you had the abilities to become a SOLDIER or just wish to become someone that can stand up for himself."

Cloud gave him an odd look. "Why wish for something that you can obtain with your own hands?" Genesis smiled a little at that. The younger crow had a good head on his shoulders. "Besides I've never made a wish that big before. I don't want to risk it. I've only done little things like change my wings, my hair. I've never…"

Cloud was startled when Genesis suddenly placed his hand over Cloud's mouth. Cloud just stared at him as the older crow put a finger to his lips and pulled his hand away. Soon enough there was a small beeping sound and the door swung open and Sephiroth and Angeal walked in. Both looked surprised to see both Cloud and Genesis there.

"What's… Going on?" Angeal was the first to question. "And why aren't you at each other's throats."

Genesis scowled at that. "I'm not so uncouth as to attack a defenceless weakling." He said as he got up from the couch. "The… Halfling and I have come to an agreement." Cloud looked surprised. He thought that the general would have spilled everything to his lovers as soon as he had the chance. "We'll be civil to each other just for the puppy's sake when he comes back… I'll teach the brat how to use materia."

If Sephiroth and Angeal weren't surprised already, they definitely were now. "What… Did you say Gen?" Angeal walked over to the red headed crow and placed his hands on Genesis' shoulders as if he needed to make sure that the crow in front of him wasn't some kind of illusion.

"You heard me. Don't make me repeat myself Angeal." Genesis said as he reached into Angeal's back pocket and pulled out his PHS.

"What are you…"

"I'm borrowing this." He said, waving goodbye with the hand that held the device as he started making his way out the door. The two remaining crows turned in Cloud's direction questioningly and the Halfling merely shrugged his shoulders.

A few moments later and Cloud's PHS went off.

'_There is no hate, only joy. For you are beloved by the goddess. Hero of the dawn, healer of worlds.'_

Cloud couldn't help but smile a little, despite the small voice at the back of his mind telling him that he still needed to erase Genesis' memory, he decided to just ignore it. Maybe Aerith was right. He needed someone to confide in and Genesis, despite his original dislike for him, might just be that person.


	32. Insecurities

_I'm sorry, life's just so busy, I'm trying though. At least it didn't take me a whole year to get this chapter out…_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

He was wrong, so very wrong. Cloud didn't even know what had possessed him for him to even think it was a good idea. It was everything but a good idea. Saying that it was bad or terrible would probably be an understatement at this point, but at this moment he couldn't find the words to express how much of a bad situation this was.

At first he thought it would be ok and he went to bed without a care in the world. It was only when he woke up that he could see his epic mistake. Now, instead of searching for the crow to erase his memory, he was on a train heading towards the slums.

He really wasn't thinking straight, but it was too late now. He might as well visit Aerith and if he was lucky, maybe she would help him sort out this mess. Once the train had stopped he made his way to sector five and found himself staring at the front door to her house. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to ask Aerith for help. What if she got found out as well? Even if she didn't it would probably be weird for her to enter the Shinra complex. Even if they didn't know what she was they'd probably arrest her for being a suspicious personal.

"You know that door isn't going to open itself if you stare at it like that Cloud."

He jumped a little in surprise at the sound of Aerith's voice coming from behind him. He could hear her giggling as he turned to face her properly. Her giggling almost immediately stopped when she saw the almost lost look on his face.

"Why don't you come inside and I'll make us some tea before we have a little chat."

He nodded his head and allowed her to lead him into the house. Cloud felt a bit awkward as he was settled into a chair and Aerith bustled around the kitchen for a few moments before she set a cup of tea before him. They both remained in silence for a while longer as the half phoenix settled down with her own cup of tea.

"Why don't you take a sip?" She questioned finally when she realised he wasn't going to say anything. Hesitantly he did as she said and almost immediately felt himself relax.

"Remedy?" He questioned and she nodded her head. Vaguely he wondered if that was just something you learnt from living in the slums or perhaps Aerith and Reno knew each other.

"Did someone find out?"

Cloud almost dropped his cup in surprise. He fumbled with it a little bit before setting it down carefully on the table.

"Are you a mind reader? Is that one of your abilities?"

She laughed a little. "Your expression was a dead giveaway. It's not like I have to be a mind reader to know what's wrong."

Cloud blushed and seemed to find his cup extremely interesting at that.

"Was it someone that you think you can't trust?"

"General Rhapsodos." He replied simply and Aerith looked thoughtful at that.

"He knows about me. First time we met he didn't know whether to be amazed or disgusted."

Cloud stared at the half phoenix in surprise. "You've met him?"

"Once. I didn't know Zack at the time and the General was with his father. We were both quite young and to him I was like an anomaly. Legendries are meant to be something of awe, but humans are meant to be below monsters, so how do you perceive someone who is both legendry and human? Do you treat them like their special or do you treat them like dirt?"

"You could treat them like a normal being." Cloud ground out and Aerith laughed.

"It's not his fault remember. It's something that his father instilled deep into his head. Give him some time and you might be able to change his way of thinking. Not that it matters anymore. Speaking of which, what are you going to do about your situation?"

"I need to erase his memory." Cloud went straight to the point.

Aerith frowned at that. "Are you sure you don't want him to keep his memories? He could help you and make a good ally." She pointed out.

"Do… Do you think I can trust him to not tell anyone?"

She shrugged at Cloud's question as she took a sip from her tea. "I only have little memories of the time I spent with him. I don't really know what he's like now, but I'd like to think that he's the type of person that could keep your secret a secret, since he's in a relationship with Zack and he hasn't told the others. I also like to think that Zack is a good judge of people. After all, he brought you to see me."

Cloud sighed. "I just… Don't know what yo do. It feels wrong letting someone who knows just walk around with his memories intact, and he could tell anyone."

"I know." Aerith pointed out.

"But you're different from everyone else. You're the same as me."

"Phoenixes are born from other phoenixes you know. I'm probably the last of my kind because we were hunted down when it was thought that our blood could grant immortality and our tears could heal any wound. You, on the other hand, are much more special than me."

"Because I was born from a normal crow and a normal crane." He questioned and Aerith smiled.

"Exactly. Fate chose you to be the white crow. I was born as a half phoenix on purpose."

"That doesn't change the fact that we are both the same." Cloud pointed out. "We're both just hunted for different reasons."

"Immortality, healing and granting wishes." Aerith laughed a little at that. "Makes you wonder what the planet is coming to." Cloud smiled a little at that. "Now back to your original question. In my opinion, I doubt he would put you in danger by telling other people. If he hasn't told the other two generals already, then I would think he would keep your secret safe. After all, Zack said he told those two everything. I think it's good for you to have someone to confide in as well, besides me that is. Ultimately though, it's your decision. Do you think you can trust him?"

Cloud seemed to think over her words for a long time. Aerith could see that it was a hard decision to make and finally, he stood up from his chair. "I trust him… Besides, if he does tell anyone it's not like they'd believe him right? And it's not like I can't do damage control if it backfires."

It wasn't quite what she had been getting at but hopefully Cloud would learn to trust Genesis later on. He needed someone closer and stronger than him to help him get through and the General could potentially be that person. Only time would tell, she guessed.


	33. Bonding

_I'm totally on a roll. It's probably not going to last very long but I'll try to keep going for as long as I can. The next chapter is already half finished._

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Genesis woke up bright and early with a plan that he had carefully prepared in his head the day before. First thing was first though, he had to get out from between Sephiroth and Angeal, who were both holding him in a death grip. Carefully, he tried to worm his way out of their arms. Sephiroth woke up in the process and let him go when he realised Genesis was trying to get out of bed, but Angeal, surprisingly, stayed asleep and Sephiroth wordlessly helped him to get out of the condor's grip.

Once he was free Sephiroth just walked straight into the bathroom to get ready for the day, not even bothering to question why the other crow was up at this time, when he would usually sleep in on his days off. Genesis was quick to follow after him, he didn't want to fall behind on his plans just because he was waiting for Sephiroth to get out of the bathroom.

Once he was done and ready to put his plan into action, he started making his way out of the apartment, only stopping when Sephiroth shoved a piece of toast into his mouth, went straight down the hallway towards Zack's apartment and swiped his card through the reader.

He was surprised that the door just clicked opened. He would probably have to talk to the cadet about keeping the manual door locked so that he could at least have a warning that someone was breaking in. He would have to work on actually waking up from the noise it made though. Genesis strode over to the spare room and pretty much kicked the door open, only to find that Cloud wasn't there.

Well that put a setback on his plans. Where on earth could that white crow have gone to this early in the morning? Obviously Sephiroth and Angeal weren't training him because they had still been in bed with him when he woke up and Zack wasn't due back for a few more days.

Slightly irritated, he flipped open his PHS and pressed the speed dial for Zack's number. It rang for a good few seconds before a very tired voice answered.

"The First Class SOLDIER you have called is currently unavailable. Please hang up and try again never."

"Zack it's me."

"… Gen?" It seemed to take Zack a while to process whose voice it was, but Genesis made a sound of acknowledgement.

"I thought it was your voice I was hearing, but I wasn't sure if it was actually you or just my ring tone."

Genesis rolled his eyes. A long time ago Zack had put some song called 'Vanilla' as his ring tone and said the guy sounded just like him. Genesis wouldn't have minded so much if the song hadn't been so suggestive… Then again it was amusing to watch Angeal fumble for his phone in the middle of meetings when he randomly tested to see if the other General had remember to turn his PHS on silent. He had tested it out on Sephiroth a few times, but he always seemed to remember to turn his PHS on silent.

"I have a question for you Zachary."

The lieutenant made a humming noise to indicate that he was listening. The fact that he didn't correct Genesis on his name just showed that he was still partially asleep.

"That chocobo of yours. You wouldn't know where he would be at this ungodly hour would you? I checked your apartment, but he's not here."

"Why do you want to know?" That seemed to have caught Zack's attention and the wolfs' tone turned slightly defensive.

"I'm just curious to know where he is. I'm not going to do anything to your charge. I just want to talk to him that's all."

There was a long moment of silence as Zack thought through what Genesis could possibly want with Cloud, before he decided that Genesis was reasonable enough to not do anything too horrible to the cadet and he answered. "He's probably in training room three at this time. If not, maybe in one of the other training rooms. Otherwise I have no idea. He might have gone into town or something. Either that or else he might have gone into the Slums." There was a short pause and the sound of Zack yawning. "Anyways, I'm going back to sleep. Be nice to him when you find him Gen."

"I'll try puppy."

Zack made a small sound of annoyance and Genesis laughed a little before murmuring their goodbyes and hanging up.

After putting his phone away Genesis quickly made his way towards the training rooms. He had to admit, the little cadet had a good head on his shoulders if he really got up this early to train every day. Sure enough, as soon as he took a step in the training room a bolt spell shot straight past him and struck a dummy on the other side of the room.

There was a small cry of surprise and the sound of someone rushing towards him. In seconds Cloud was looking over him and making sure he had no injuries, but being careful not to touch the General at the same time. Genesis took note that he had his fake crane wings out and he gave them a somewhat disgusted look before he placed his hands on Cloud's shoulders so that he not only didn't have to look at them, but to stop the smaller crows' fussing over him as well.

"I'm fine cadet. I've had much worse than a bolt to the face. I vaguely remember someone thinking it would be fun to aim a level three fire spell at my face during the war."

Cloud winced. That more than likely would have hurt a lot more than a bolt if it had landed. "I apologise General. If you're wanting to use this training room, I was just finishing."

It was obvious that Cloud was still a bit wary of him and Genesis frowned at that. "Actually, I was looking for you… Cloud." He had to rack his brain to remember his name. Usually Zack called him Spikey or Chickabo or something along those lines. He got the feeling that the cadet would be quite uncomfortable if he was to call him either one of those names.

"Looking for me?" Cloud's voice cut through his thoughts.

"I wasn't just saying that I'd help you with your materia work just to throw Angeal and Sephiroth off. You've been lucky that no one's caught you with your wings out so far, but that won't always be the case." Genesis paced around Cloud. Analysing his body structure and looking for places where Cloud could possibly conceal weapons of some sort. "I won't be teaching you how to use materia though." He stopped in front of Cloud. "I'll teach you a few other skills that the others won't. Ones that aren't in the programme's curriculum, but ones that you're going to need anyway… It's more Turk stuff than anything though."

"You mean… Killing people?"

Genesis shook his head. "Not all that the Turks do is assassinations. Well… Most of it is, but there are other things that come with it. The first lesson that you need to learn is that everything is a weapon, you just need to learn how to use it. Since you're only learning now, we'll have to start with what you already know."

"You mean materia?"

Genesis smirked. The smaller crow definitely had a good head on his shoulders. Gently he led Cloud over to one of the benches and began his lesson. "Women in the slums tend to wrap materia up in their hair to make them look more like accessories. Everyone else simply equips it into their armour or have it sitting in their pockets. But it's not very helpful if it falls out of your pocket or someone just takes your armour off you right?" Cloud nodded, that was understandable. "Also you don't want to have too much on you. Only the ones that are a necessary. It might boost your magic power to have more, but it weighs down on you."

"There's no point in having that much magic power if you get knocked down in one hit."

Genesis' smile widened. "Exactly."

Training Cloud was going to be a lot easier than he expected.


	34. No More Worries

_I'm going to go on hiatus again for a little while. Maybe a few more months. I'll still be writing this fic on my phone. We had an incident just before New Years. It involved my father, a stove, my bedroom and that element that we all associate Genesis with. Everyone and everything's fine it's just that when they start rebuilding I don't know what I will and won't have with me. (I get the feeling that I won't have internet though)_

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII nor its characters. I also don't own the ideas taken from Love Monster.**

Cissnei was getting annoyed. She was wondering if she should just hit the speed dial for Zack or if she should just stop watching him stare at his PHS, which was hard, considering that they were confined in a small truck and Zack was sitting so close to her that it would have made her very uncomfortable if she didn't know that he was gay and taken.

The new recruits in the truck with them were either looking nervous or they were eyeing her up, which was another reason why Zack was sitting so close to her. Not that she couldn't protect herself from a bunch of rats and mice, but it was a small sacrifice on their part to get this mission finished without having any unnecessary issues.

Zack flipped his PHS shut and lent back, sighing.

"Why don't you just call whoever it is you're worried about?" She questioned, noting that a few of the recruits tensed at the sound of her voice cutting through the silence. If that managed to scare them, then they weren't going to last very long in the military.

Zack just sighed again. "That's the problem. I don't know who would be best to call."

Cissnei raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"If I call Gen he might get angry at me for being paranoid. If Cloud doesn't answer his phone I'm going to be out of here faster than you could blink."

"You go near that door and I'll tranquilise you before you could even turn the handle."

Zack pouted and crossed his arms in his seat.

"Why don't you call one of the other Generals?" She asked after he had sulked for a minute and Zack perked up. "You can ask one of them to check up on your student can't you?"

Before she knew it Zack had whipped his PHS back out and was dialling a number. It rang for a second before the person answered the phone.

"What is it puppy?"

He pouted a little, but let the nickname slide. "Seph, could you do me a favour?"

"Not if it makes my stack of paperwork bigger than it already is."

"I promise it won't. I just need you to check on Cloudy for me. Gen was looking for him this morning and I stupidly told him where he was."

"That was stupid wasn't it?" He could hear Sephiroth's disapproval over the line and Zack fought the urge to whine that it wasn't his fault, when it obviously was. "Luckily for you I'm not doing anything at the moment so I guess I can go looking for them."

"Did you finally decide to take our advice and decide not to do all your paperwork all at once when you're meant to be having a day off?"

Sephiroth made a noise of annoyance. "Either you tell me where your cadet would be or I'm going to hang up on you Zackary."

"They might be in the training rooms." Zack grinned a little, despite the fact that he knew Sephiroth might make good on his promise to hang up on him. "Cloud is usually in number three at this time." He could hear the door open and closing on the other side of the line to signal that Sephiroth had started making his way through the complex.

"What is your charge doing in the training rooms this early in the morning? He's usually in your rooms when I pick him up for training."

"He likes to practise with his materia on his own early in the morning."

Sephiroth hummed. That explained why he was so good with his materia. Zack could hear murmurs of people saying good morning to Sephiroth and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"What's so funny Zachary." Sephiroth questioned.

"Can't they see that you're on your PHS? Why do they even bother greeting you in the morning when you're obviously having a conversation with someone else?"

"I don't know why halve the people in this company do certain things. For example, why Angeal felt the need to take you on as a student and also why the Vice President is friends with you."

Zack pouted and the two remained silent until there was the sound of a door opening.

"Sephiroth what are you doing here?" He could hear Genesis' voice in the background.

"The puppy wanted to talk to his chocobo." At least Sephiroth was subtle enough not to outright say that he was worried about them being in the same room as each other. Wait did Sephiroth just call Cloud a chocobo? "What are you two doing anyway?" Sephiroth's voice cut through Zack's thoughts.

"I'm teaching him how to conceal materia without losing it. I told you that I'd help with his training." Genesis sounded annoyed.

"No need to get angry over a question Genesis. I was merely inquiring about what you were doing. I'm not suspecting you of any foul play. Now cadet…"

There was the sound of shuffling and a tentative hello sounded through the PHS.

"Spikey… Did Genesis just say that he's… Training you?" Zack questioned, not quite sure that he had been hearing right. There was no way that Genesis would have offered to train him, but Cloud made a sound of agreement.

"He's trying to teach me how to conceal materia just in case I get attacked by someone again."

"But… Genesis… He…"

"I did it because someone told me that I had to get used to him. I figured some one on one time would help with me getting used to him."

Zack made a small yelping noise in surprise from hearing Genesis' voice, causing one of the new recruits and Cissnei to stare at him oddly.

"Am I on speaker phone?" He questioned suspiciously.

"Genesis and I have superior hearing in comparison to the rest of you. I would have thought you would have known that by now." Sephiroth's voice came through the line and Zack pouted, despite knowing that they couldn't see his face.

"So Gen and Cloudy are ok with each other?" He questioned and Sephiroth hummed in agreement while Genesis clicked his tongue in annoyance, so much for making it look like he wasn't suspicious of Genesis' motives.

"Zack." Cloud's voice came through over the PHS again.

"Yeah Spikey?"

"When are you coming back?"

Zack glanced over at Cissnei, who was staring out the window. "Hey Cissnei, when are we getting back to Midgar?"

She paused in her musings and looked at him. "I'm heading over to Wutai tomorrow afternoon. Katana will be coming back with the heli to pick me up. You'll be back in Midgar with the recruits in about two days."

Zack nodded and went back to his PHS. "Did you hear that Cloudy?"

"Two days?" Cloud enquired and Zack hummed in agreement. "I'll see you when you come back then."

"Be good. Remember to shower and brush your teeth. Don't talk to strangers and keep your ears clean."

Cloud chuckled a little. "Shouldn't I be the one telling you that?"

"He's got a point there. The puppy's filthy." He could hear Genesis in the background again.

"Genesis." Sephiroth scolded the other general lightly, though Zack could hear the amusement in his tone.

"Hey Gen… I do trust you, you know." Zack pointed out.

"No offence taken Zachary. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't done anything to make you think that I wouldn't hurt your baby chocobo. Now get back to ordering around those new recruits and we'll see each other when you get home. That's an order SOLDIER."

"Yes Red General Sir." Zack mock saluted despite the fact that neither of them could see him. He could hear laughter on the other side of the line before they hung up on each other.


End file.
